Kremlin anger proves self-defeating: After Washington passed a
law to
punish Russian officials involved in the murder of a whistleblowing lawyer
who worked for an American company, Russia passed a law that hinders
Americans who want to adopt Russian orphans - many severely disabled.
Putin's Punished Orphans in the Global Spotlight (Gazeta, Russia)
"A year has passed and according to publicly available data,
there is information on 196 children who had already been matched with their
potential American parents, but were not permitted to unite with them. Ninety
five of them, despite the promises of our nation's leaders to find these
children families in Russia (and therefore a challenging enterprise!), remained
in orphanages at the end of the year. ... Ninety five children who could already
have been with a family for an entire year. That's a lot by any measure. I
believe that posturing in the international arena is not worth ruining the life
of even a single child."
It may be about orphans today, but it all goes back to Sergei Magnitsky: His death in a Russian prison, after implicating top officials in a major tax fraud scheme, is widely regarded as a murder-cover-up in the West, and resulted in the U.S. Magnitsky Act, which targets Russian officials. Moscow has passed its own legislation in retaliation. The trouble is, the Dima Yakovlev Bill, named after a Russian boy who choked to death after his adoptive U.S. dad forgot him in a car, hurts Russian orphans more than it does Americans.
A year ago, in December 2012, the State Duma passed the so-called DimaYakovlev Law. Or, as it is formally called, an amendments
to the federal law “On
Sanctions for Individuals Violating Fundamental Human Rights and Freedoms of
the Citizens of the Russian Federation.” These "fundamental
rights and freedoms of Russian Federation citizens," seem to be that if
they suddenly become orphans, they have the right to remain in one and
not be taken in by a family, if that family has the wrong citizenship or residence.
[Editor’s Note: The DimaYakovlev Law was passed as a consequence of the
controversy over the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. Magnitsky was jailed in
2008 on charges of tax evasion and fraud, after he implicated senior Russian
officials in a scheme to defraud the government, and died and was likely
murdered awaiting trial. Magnitsky's colleagues say the charges against him
were fabricated by investigators, whom Magnitsky had accused of being involved
in the theft of $230 million of state funds. The U.S. Congress responded by
passing the Magnitsky Act,
which punishes Russian officials thought to be responsible for Magnitsky's
death, by prohibiting their entrance into America and freezing their U.S.
assets. In retaliation, Russian lawmakers passed the DimaYakovlev Bill, named after a Russian boy who choked
to death when his adoptive American father forgot him in a car. The bill seeks
to preventU.S. citizens from adopting
Russian orphans, freezes the assets of Americans with assets in Russia deemed
to have "violated the rights" of Russian citizens, and excludes them
from the country].
When I speak and write about the DimaYakovlev Law, I always have very
complicated feelings, because I truly believe that our country has the
potential to get by without international adoptions, and as a person who has
worked for many years promoting the family unit, I know how much corruption is
associated with foreign adoptions. Corruption, needless to say, organized at
the hands of our bureaucrats, and employees at agencies and services
responsible for placing our children.
Alas, not one person has been punished
for corruption connected with the ban on American adoptions. All bureaucrats
involved remain in place, climbing up the career ladder, and bearing no
responsibility for anything.
For some reason, the children are the
ones held responsible.
When I say we could cope with this
ourselves, I am of course not referring to the current situation. Today,
neither the system of state aid for children in distress, nor our legislation,
nor our society, is prepared to take on the care of our own. We are free to take
any position we like and refuse to allow foreigners to help in the name of
patriotism, pride, or stupidity. When we are adults, when we decide for
ourselves, and when it isn't a question of life and death - that's our business.
I dare say that for children living
without a family, the chances of being taken in is a matter of life and death.
The opportunity of a lifetime. A chance for personal development.
Fully developing a personality within a
system of collective care will never occur. The potential and opportunities a
child would have had, had they not been brought up in an orphanage, we will
never know. Life in an orphanage is to forever steal the life of a child. We
can say as loudly as we want that we saved a child from death. But what would
have happened had he grown up in his own family? We saved him from death, but
didn't give him the chance to live. Then there is the big question of what we
have saved him from. I know of many cases in which a child was in no way threatened in
his own family, but was nevertheless taken away due to poverty, dirt, or the
incompetence of parents - questions that could be resolved and are not
questions of life or death to the child.
When I look at children in orphanages,
or orphanages for the disabled, I see thousands of ruined futures. Each had a
very real chance for salvation. The mother could have been helped or at least
not been persuaded into giving up her child with Down's syndrome, on the
justification that “he will grow up healthier.”
There could have been less laziness and relatives
in Irkustsk or Chita could have been found. We could
have found a foster family. We could have found any family that would have made
it possible for the child to live and develop, have a personality, to be
themselves. Not so for Ivanov
or Sydrov, who have been praised for learning how to
control and hide their loneliness, their yearning for their parents, and
their character. They always do what they are told, sing traditional Russian
songs in assembly, and smile politely at visiting sponsors.
Nor for Polina
from the [Holy Order of the] Sisters of Mercy, who has spent her entire life in
one of 12 beds and who, every few months - joy! - goes on a trip because there
is only one nanny for every 12 children.
And even the nanny goes home to her own
children and her own family after work. But Polina remains,
alone with nothing, and no one comes to her as they would to their own child.
Posted By Worldmeets.US
A year has passed and according to publicly
available data, there is information on 196 children who had already been
matched with their potential American parents, but were not permitted to unite
with them. Ninety five of them, despite the promises of our nation's leaders to
find these children families in Russia (and therefore a challenging enterprise!),
remained in orphanages at the end of the year. For them this year, like hundreds
of thousands of other children, nothing at all has changed.
Group upbringing, group breakfasts,
group rooms in which children belonging to no one await an unknowable fate. Ninety
five children who could already have been with a family for an entire year. That's
a lot by any measure. I believe that posturing in the international arena is
not worth ruining the life of even a single child.
The need for officials to somehow take responsibility
for their statements has led to orphans becoming a hot topic, which is
unprecedented. The media, lawmakers, governors, and ministries - all have, in
one way or another, discussed the issue, and measures have been taken to support
adoptions by Russians.
The discussion of why the problem
remains unresolved despite multiple measures to support adoptive parents would
take a long time. Generally speaking, they didn't work. There has been talk of
a system of professional families. The sense is that bureaucrats are trying to
find the Achilles' heel of orphanhood, instantly come
up with a solution, and make everything right with the stroke of a pen.
Unfortunately, abandonment, the "Achilles'
heel of orphanhood," is due to the socio-economic structure
of our society: the life of Russian families is all about survival. This isn't easy
to resolve.
From what I've seen so far, the most
useful is a draft resolution on reforming the network of institutions that care
for orphans. It is called “The Regulation of the Placement of Children Without
Parental Care Within Organizations For Child-Orphans.” True, for every step
forward this reform takes, there are two steps back. I really hope ministry heads
prove courageous enough to carry out these reforms. Then at least children will
be able to live within the context of real family situations rather than
impersonal anthills, and life in an orphanage will be considered a temporary
situation for the child. That would be something. A first step.
Now we stand before the entire world,
our system of adoption on display.
We have attracted too much attention to
ourselves. I hope this proves to be the long-awaited kickstart
that finally allows us to make reforms we have put off for decades. Then we
will be able to honestly say that we don't need foreign adoptions, because we no
longer house children in orphanages.
*Elena Alshanskaya is president of Volunteers and Aid for Orphans