Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a bill Friday that bars Americans from adopting Russian children, provoking anguish among U.S. families that have been waiting months, and in some cases years, to complete the process.
The legislation caps a year of increasing Russian hostility toward the United States, stoked by Putin but taken up with unexpected gusto by members of parliament. A series of measures has taken aim at what is perceived to be — or characterized as — American interference in Russian concerns, from political organizing to the defense of human rights. The adoption bill is seen as retaliation against a U.S. law that targets corrupt Russian officials.
Passage of the legislation is a benchmark in the deterioration of Russian-American relations, and unlike some of the earlier, symbolic moves, it has real consequences. Over the past 20 years, 60,000 Russians have been adopted by Americans, and officials said the measure would block the pending adoptions of 46 children.
Kim Summers of Freehold, N.J., was just weeks away from bringing home her adopted son, Preston, when the legislation hit. She and her husband adopted him on Dec. 12 and returned to the United States three days later to complete a required 30-day waiting period.
“As far as we knew until this morning, he was coming home with us,” Summers said. “What’s going on has absolutely nothing to do with parenting a child. My son was looked at by 22 Russian families before I had the chance to even fathom adopting him, and none of them wanted him.”
Senior members of the Russian cabinet had warned against the bill, saying that it punishes orphans more than it does American politicians and that it looks like a defense of corruption while unavoidably drawing attention to the sorry state of Russian orphanages.
But Putin disregarded the warnings, seemingly pulled along by the enthusiasm for the legislation in both houses of parliament.
Washington reacted sharply to the new law Friday. The State Department issued a statement saying it deeply regrets “the Russian government’s politically motivated decision.” It also expressed hope that adoptive parents and children “who have already met and bonded” would be allowed to complete adoption procedures that were initiated before the law took effect.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) called Putin’s action “shameful and appalling” and said the law’s effects on thousands of Russian children would be “cruel and malicious.” He said in a statement: “I often wonder how much lower the Russian government under President Putin can stoop. But to punish innocent babies and children over a political disagreement between our governments is a new low, even for Putin’s Russia.”
The issues at the heart of the U.S.-Russian relationship in the coming year are critical to the United States, primarily the continuing transit of goods into and out of Afghanistan, and Russian cooperation on Iran. So far, both topics have been kept mostly out of the fray.
For several weeks, Putin appeared to be putting the brakes on the adoption ban. He raised questions about it at his annual news conference this month, and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Science and Education Minister Dmitry Livanov, among others, called it ill-advised. But on Thursday, Putin said, “I have not seen any reason why I should not sign it.”
source
i feel for these families, especially the ones who were just a couple weeks away from being able to take take their children home
I've been in a cloud of school and work for the past few months, so I may be missing something here, but...did anything predicate this particular move by Putin?
anyway, what this article doesn't mention, is that this law is supposed to be the 'punishment' for the Magnitsky bill
Edited at 2012-12-28 10:50 pm (UTC)
This isn't anything but traficking of children across international boundaries. There's money involved - the American families have it, and the Russian adoption agencies/government agencies need it. Enough already.
Das ist Bullshit.
'Deep regret' and 'expressing hope', 'sharp reaction', my ass.
because, really, Putin--fuck you. you don't give two shits about the abandoned children in your country and don't pretend that you do....or you'd realize it's better for them to be adopted out of country than sit in orphanages, where they are almost always ignored and, in many cases, abused. yup, that's SO much better than a loving American family.
fuck you.
There are a lot of really well-documented reasons why international adoption is not as simple as wealthy white Americans rescuing poor brown babies from lives of terrible poverty or deprivation. International adoption can sometimes come very close to the sale of a child, particularly when children are being adopted from VERY poor nations. There have been a number of high-profile cases of adoption where the "adopted" child was not unwanted by the family - where the family had surrendered the child to an orphanage hoping that it would be temporary, until the family could get their legs back under them. Such surrenders are symptoms of a system with no welfare, no safety net.
On the other hand, I really dislike the false equivalences being drawn here between the prospects of a Russian orphan (or unwanted child) in Russia versus the U.S. Russia is not a "first world" nation. There is a lot of poverty in the parts of Russia that are not large cities close to the West. More than that, children in Russian state care tend to be disabled or ill, and get little to no care. Many of these kids would in fact be better off, individually, in adoptive homes.
I think it's fair to talk about whether international adoption acts as a safety valve or whether it enables a system that provides no safety net for vulnerable mothers and families, but I think it's bullshit to act like the institutional problems in the US with healthcare/welfare are comparable to those in Russia (or a number of other ex-Soviet states).
If it was, Putin would also be trying to reform orphanages and creating better safety nets for impoverished families. But he's not, so this is a bullshit measure.
"But these organizations, while laudable, can hardly handle all of the adoptive parents overwhelmed by behaviors that in extreme cases can include violence, hoarding, suicidal tendencies, catatonia, inappropriate sexual behavior and pyromania. These behaviors are not the norm, but they have been reported in hundreds if not thousands of international adoptions.....
...A leader in the field of orphan trauma and rehabilitation — and an adoptive father of seven children from Eastern Europe and Russia — Federici estimates there have been about 4,000 disruptions or dissolutions since 1990.....
..."Regular Americans don't get it at all. If you have never had one of these children in your house and lived with it 24/7, you don't have a clue. Its great to be an armchair quarterback and direct and pass judgment. Until you have walked a mile in our shoes, it means nothing. RAD is a very different diagnosis. These children feel unworthy and rejected. They want to get back at any and every adult because of that rejection. Conventional parenting or discipline does not work. ....- "Reactive Attachment Disorder is real. We found many adoption workers (after the fact, mind you) that blamed us for "not trying hard enough" or "not loving the children enough." While tenacity love are important, they are not the answer for RAD."...
"This system is broken on both sides but it starts on the Russian side. The American couples invest so much time, emotion and yes, money, into the process that they feel committed to NOT come home empty handed. These couples and singles parents have a false sense of security when they travel to Russia by the agencies. The reality is that you are alone in a strange country, with strangers that you are trusting to look out for your best interests. In reality, you are forced to travel with thousands of dollars strapped to your body, that you can't declare in customs, hand over most of that money to a Russian national that works for the adoption agency. There is no paper trail, receipt or going back at that point. The Russians are calling all of the shots. On top of that, lets not forget about the "gifts" that you have to give to everyone along the way to make sure your adoption will go through. More like bribes, to be perfectly honest. Then there are the children. Why are there so many of them in orphanages over there? Most were born to mothers who drank (heavily) during the pregnancy or to prostitutes with some form of venereal disease. Those kids don't have a chance in country, so, they market them to other countries."
"From Russia with little love
A 2005 study by the University of Minnesota’s International Adoption Center found that, of 222 kids adopted from Eastern Europe, nearly 12 percent suffered from full or partial FASD.
“Vodka is a way of life in Eastern Europe,” explains Dr. Ronald Federici, the FASD specialist who diagnosed Jesse....“There are parents who go into it not understanding the challenges,” says Christy Cameron. “Any child — even one from the U.S. — that gets adopted is coming from a bad situation. The vast majority of these [Russian] kids are going to have some sort of special needs. People need to know that going in.”
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic
http://adoption.about.com/od/parent
http://www.latitudenews.com/story/the-t
The American law system did show that it doesn't give shit about the kids and they are no way safer in the USA than in Russia. The Dima Yakovlev / Chase Harrison case was just outrageous.
And why do the Americans want Russian babies in the first place? America has its own orphans, lots and lots of them, but it seems the potential parents want to play a Great Western Savior or just don't want a baby of color (as far as I remember there are more non-white children in the American system).
Then, the Americans do have more money on average than the Russians and they can spent more money on the legal issues, bribes (that's a big problem in the Russian side) and so on.
Obviously, adopting an older child carries different risks, particularly if said child has suffered abuse and/or neglect (and don't get me started on the notion that abused and neglected children are irredeemable or not 'adoptable' because they aren't perfect angels), but most of these people are adopting older children, anyway. So I suspect one of the biggest contributors as to why they're going to a poor country to adopt is exactly as you said; so they can play the White/Western Saviour.