Ever since an adoptive American mother sent her foster child back to his Russian homeland – alone on a long-haul flight from Tennessee to Moscow – Russians have been indignant, and the adoption of Russian children by foreigners has been suspended. But according to this news item from Russia’s New Region newspaper, despite undeniable mishaps, statistics show that most orphaned Russian children would be much better off as foster children of Americans.
For New Region, reporter Olga Vetrova writes in part:
Overall, Russia has four to five times the number of orphans than Europe or the United States. The number of young children without fathers and mothers is even higher today than it was during the war [WWII].
Let’s remember how, when 8 year-old Artem Saveliev was returned from the U.S. to Russia with a note of “rejection” from his adoptive parents, it caused a firestorm in Russia. Society demanded that the Russian government ban the adoption of children by American citizens. Soon enough, a moratorium was introduced – that until the signing of a Russian-U.S. agreement that “allows us to put in place strong guarantees to ensure that the tragedies which took place in the past won’t be repeated. Because since the early 1990s, 15 adopted Russian children have died at the hands of American parents.
But in Russia, over 700,000 children continue to live in orphanages, and their numbers are not on the decline. Every year immediately after birth, 500 parent-guardians formally give up their babies – due to domestic insecurity, poverty or fear of social chastisement, writes the Voice of Russia.
Subsidies for single mothers in Russia vary from 300 rubles ($10.31) to 4,000 rubles ($137.51) a month.
Aside from that, according to experts, Russians are biased against adoption, and have almost no tradition of raising children in temporary foster homes. And therefore, rejecting the adoption of children by foreigners is premature.
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