MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti commentator Olga Sobolevskaya.)
Valentina Petrenko, head of the social policy committee of the Federation Council (the upper house of parliament), has proposed that foreigners be banned from adopting Russian orphans. "The reason for our decision is that children in adopted families have been murdered. We are referring primarily to the United States," Petrenko said. This is clearly a populist decision, which largely fails to take account of the real situation.
Parliament has repeatedly discussed the issue of international adoption. It is a subject that touches a nerve in Russian society. In July, Vika Bazhenova (Nina Hilt), a girl from Siberia, was beaten to death by her American adoptive mother. Nina was the 13th Russian child to be killed by foster parents in the U.S. in recent time. Following her death, ROMIR Monitoring carried out a poll, which showed that over 50% of Russians are against adoptions by foreigners, and 44% would support legislation banning such adoptions.
But it is equally revealing that 72% of Russians are unwilling to bring up children that are not their own "due to housing and financial difficulties." Another reason given for the reluctance to adopt was that the procedures involved are overly time-consuming and complex. The Education and Science Ministry reported that in 2004, 9,600 children from Russia were adopted from abroad. In comparison, despite the legal preference given to Russians, only 7,400 children were adopted in Russia. Recent checks carried out by the Prosecutor General's Office have shown that some international adoptions violate the law. There is no control over non-accredited agencies, which bear no responsibility for the fate of the children they arrange to be adopted.
"Of course we must react in circumstances when foreign adoptive parents are violent," Deputy Prosecutor General Sergei Fridinsky said. Under the law the state must monitor the situation of adopted children. On the other hand, Fridinsky acknowledged, "Many Russian children have good lives in foreign families."
The Federation Council's social policy committee has already asked the Prosecutor General's Office to impose a moratorium on foreign adoptions. Petrenko said the committee was drawing up amendments to adoption procedures. "We are proposing that the agencies be made more responsible for adoptions," she said. Even some of the accredited agencies will quickly set up an adoption without asking too many questions provided the applicants are willing to pay several thousand dollars (adopting a child can cost as much as $15,000 or even more).
Russians rarely have that kind of money readily available. But foreigners agree to pay these sums, because in their own countries there are long waiting lists to adopt children. "We were shocked by the sums charged in Russia," Widna Haritonov, an American woman who married a Russian emigrant, told RIA Novosti. But then she added, "The American agencies make a lot of money from adoptions as well, and they don't do anything to help us."
The Education and Science Ministry is proposing that adoptive parents be subject to an independent psychological examination. Clearly this must apply to all adoptive parents, be they Russian or foreign. Children sometimes fall victim to violence in Russian families as well, and not just in adoptive families. In any case, letters from the U.S. show that most foreign families who are truly willing to look after and love an adopted child would not feel humiliated by such an examination, and recognize its importance.
Adoptive parents even learn Russian traditions. "We have continued Russian language classes and we speak Russian to our child at home," write the Carpenters, who are from Kansas City. Widna Haritonov's adopted children socialize with other adopted Russian children, and she says this is commonplace. In this way, the children are being brought up in their own cultural environment. Yekaterina Lakhova, head of the State Duma Committee for Women, the Family and Children, says that this is very important.
Petrenko says that Russian adoptive parents should undoubtedly be offered "preferential terms." But it is hardly sensible to deprive foreign families of any chance to adopt a Russian child. Indeed, many of them love the children with their heart and soul. Gale Seal wrote, "We spent a long time praying we could adopt a Russian child." "We cannot imagine life without them," echoed the Carpenters, while Judy Holmes wrote, "We love our children more than life itself and hope the Russian government will judge us on our merits, and not by the actions of a few."
There are about 700,000 children in Russia up for adoption. The future of many of them could be decided in the near future. However, what is needed when dealing with such a sensitive and complex issue is common sense, and not a populist approach.
