Big promises coming out of Russia today.
“Despite the signing of agreements on cooperation in the field of adoption between Russia on the one hand and the USA and France on the other, and earlier between Russia and Italy in the outgoing year, Russia’s Ombudsman for Children’s Rights Pavel Astakhov believes that child adoption by foreigners is a temporary phenomenon in this country. “Russia needs 5 years to do away with orphanhood”, Astakhov says, adding that “only specialized orphanages for children who need a complex medical care will remain in this country”.
Hot debates around child adoption by foreigners are currently underway in the Russian society. The supporters of this idea say that first of all, this is good for children themselves since only handicapped children are taken abroad. But in reality the situation is somewhat different, Astakhov says.
“Last year foreign citizens adopted 3,355 children. Out of these 3,355 only 4 per cent – to be more exact, 148 children were handicapped. Which means that Americans adopted 44 disabled children out of more than 1,000. Russian citizens adopt disabled children far more willingly.”
There’s one more thing that should be mentioned here – they say that foreigners adopt the children which were rejected by potential adoptive parents in Russia. In reality, they adopt children under 3 years old, that is, the children for the adoption of which Russian citizens are queuing. People also say that foreigners pay children’s surgical operations, thus, saving their lives. Meanwhile, in Russia high-tech medical help was offered to more than 50, 000 children, including orphans in the first place, last year.
Another myth is that that Russian orphans feel better abroad is not confirmed by official reports in the USA, Astakhov says.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, early this year the number of children who were subjected to violence in the USA reached 3 million 600,000, and out of them 360,000 children, that is 10 per cent, were subjected to sexual violence. And as regards Russia, the figure is 9,500 children, which means less than in America. 1,560 children in America have died from violence, and the majority of them were under 4.
Americans adopt the highest number of children in the world: in 2011- 9,320 children out of which 1,016 were children from Russia. We have to delay the ratification of convention on adoption with the USA because we do not receive relevant reports, Pavel Astakhov says.
“We do not stop to stress that 19 Russian children died in the adoptive families in the USA, while the public organizations in the USA are aware of only 40 cases because they register a child’s death only during a second adoption. I’ve decided to take part in the Kseniya Antonova process who was raped by her adoptive father during a second adoption because her documents were faked, including her birth certificate, where one year was added to her age, which meant that she was of age, and this is quite a different thing. I’ll go to the USA and will question the experts, who became permanent consultants for cases concerning Russian orphans and not always tell the truth.”
Some time ago Russia’s Ombudsman for Children’s Rights Pavel Astakhov and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov signed a joint address to the Supreme Court, with a request for the necessity of introducing a moratorium on adoption by foreigners. Astakhov is sure that Russia needs 5 years to do away with orphanages and that children who need adoption will be taken into adoptive families in Russia.”
Pavel Astakhov: Russia with no orphans – such it will be
[The Voice of Russia 12/29/11 by Maria Domnitskaya]
One thing that he mentions that is worth underscoring is that local Russians who want to adopt ALSO want to adopt healthy children under age three. That is pretty much the same in every foreign country. Four percent of children adopted internationally to the US with disabilities seems low, but that is a percentage that we have seen with Ethiopia before as well. The US adoption agencies market international adoption as “saving” a high percentage of special needs children through adoption and the media prints story after story about it, but the real statistics usually are much lower than the marketing implies.
It is hard to get updates on Ksenia’s case since the US media seems to be blocking this story, so we are glad to see that the case is still in progress.
We will check back with you in 2016 Mr. Astakhov and see how this orphanage shuttering goes…we won’t be holding our breaths.
REFORM Puzzle Piece
I'll admit, agencies want families to adopt healthy children. It was difficult for us to find someone who would help us adopt special needs. It's one of the reasons that we went through someone recommended by the Russian Ministry of Education who they approved when facilitating our adoption. We submitted our paperwork and spoke directly with the MoE in Russia, we didn't have an agency drop it off.
The other numbers that I can confirm are that Russian's are looking for 0 – 3 years old. Honestly, Russia should prevent children 3 and under from being adopted Internationally and give them a chance to be adopted locally, unless they have acute special needs that can't be addresses in Russia. Russia does have good medical care, it's different from here in the US but that doesn't make it bad, just different. The children who need families who won't be adopted are the older children or children with special needs. Agencies need to be taken out of the loop and rules need to be put in place. The only downside to shutting down adoptions while new rules are put into place is that hundreds of thousands of children age out each year in these countries, and every year that adoptions are shut down is another year that those children lose hope and end up on the streets, doing drugs, drinking, in jail or dead. There need to be programs developed specifically for children who age out of the orphanages to help give them a chance. To help them go to college, train them so they can support themselves and give them a chance at life.