Adoption Ban Update

My heart aches right now for those families who have actually traveled to meet their child. I can only imagine what it is like for those who have had their court and are simply waiting out the 30 days.  I find it interesting that in 60,000 US adoptions of Russian children that less than 50 have been killed. (And don't read into that I think that is OK.) My point is that nearly 1500 Russian children have been killed by their Russian adoptive parents--not to mention the thousands that are returned back to the orphanages.  You don't hear about that.  I am angered that Russian officials are using these orphans are a political bargaining chip. 

Please pray that wisdom will prevail; that these officials and Putin will soften their hearts on this issue; and finally pray that peace will be wrapped around these 46 waiting families.  If you haven't already, please sign the petition from my earlier post or at least contact your senator and house of reprepresentative and let him know how important this issue is. 

From Yahoo News: 

MOSCOW (AP) — Defying a storm of domestic and international criticism, Russia moved toward finalizing a ban on Americans adopting Russian children, as Parliament's upper house voted unanimously Wednesday in favor of a measure that President Vladimir Putin has indicated he will sign into law.


The bill is widely seen as the Kremlin's retaliation against an American law that calls for sanctions against Russians deemed to be human rights violators. It comes as Putin takes an increasingly confrontational attitude toward the West, brushing aside concerns about a crackdown on dissent and democratic freedoms.

Dozens of Russian children close to being adopted by American families now will almost certainly be blocked from leaving the country. The law also cuts off the main international adoption route for Russian children stuck in often dismal orphanages: Tens of thousands of Russian youngsters have been adopted in the U.S. in the past 20 years. There are about 740,000 children without parental care in Russia, according to UNICEF.

All 143 members of the Federation Council present voted to support the bill, which has sparked criticism from both the U.S. and Russian officials, activists and artists, who say it victimizes children by depriving them of the chance to escape the squalor of orphanage life. The vote comes days after Parliament's lower house overwhelmingly approved the ban.

The U.S. State Department said Wednesday it regretted the Russian parliament's decision."Since 1992, American families have welcomed more than 60,000 Russian children into their homes, providing them with an opportunity to grow up in a family environment," spokesman Patrick Ventrell said in a statement from Washington. "The bill passed by Russia's parliament would prevent many children from enjoying this opportunity ...

"It is misguided to link the fate of children to unrelated political considerations," he said. Seven people with posters protesting the bill were detained outside the Council before Wednesday's vote. "Children get frozen in the Cold War," one poster read. Some 60 people rallied in St. Petersburg, Russia's second largest city.

The bill is part of larger legislation by Putin-allied lawmakers retaliating against a recently signed U.S. law that calls for sanctions against Russians deemed to be human rights violators. Although Putin has not explicitly committed to signing the bill, he strongly defended it in a press conference last week as "a sufficient response" to the new U.S. law.

Originally Russia's lawmakers cobbled together a more or less a tit-for-tat response to the U.S. law, providing for travel sanctions and the seizure of financial assets in Russia of Americans determined to have violated the rights of Russians.

But it was expanded to include the adoption measure and call for a ban on any organizations that are engaged in political activities if they receive funding from U.S. citizens or are determined to be a threat to Russia's interests.

Russian children's rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov told the Interfax news agency that 46 children who were on the verge of being adopted by Americans would stay in Russia if the bill is approved — despite court rulings in some of these cases authorizing the adoptions.

The ombudsman supported the bill, saying that foreign adoptions discourage Russians from adopting children. "A foreigner who has paid for an adoption always gets a priority compared to potential Russian adoptive parents," Astakhov was quoted as saying. "A great country like Russia cannot sell its children."

Russian law allows foreigners to adopt only if a Russian family has not expressed interest in a child being considered for adoption. Some top government officials, including the foreign minister, have spoken flatly against the adoption law, arguing that the measure would be in violation of Russia's constitution and international obligations. But Senator Mikhail Margelov, chairman of the Council's foreign affairs committee, referred to the bill as "a natural and a long overdue response" to the U.S. legislation. "Children must be placed in Russian families, and this is a cornerstone issue for us," he said. Margelov said that a bilateral Russian-U.S. agreement binds Russia to give notice of a halt to adoptions 12 months in advance. Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agencies that the president would consider the bill within the next two weeks.

The measure has become one of the most debated topics in Russia. By Tuesday, more than 100,000 Russians had signed an online petition urging the Kremlin to scrap the bill. Over the weekend, dozens of Muscovites placed toys and lit candles in front of the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament after it approved the bill on Friday, but security guards promptly removed them. Opposition groups said they will rally against the bill on Jan. 13, and several popular artists publicly voiced their concern about the legislation.

While receiving a state award from Putin on Wednesday, film actor Konstantin Khabensky wore a badge saying "Children Are Beyond Politics." Veteran rock musician Andrey Makarevich called on Putin Monday to stop "killing children." During a marathon Putin press conference Thursday, eight of the 60 questions the president answered focused on the bill. Responding angrily, Putin claimed that Americans routinely mistreat children from Russia.

The bill is named in honor of Dima Yakovlev, a Russian toddler who was adopted by Americans and then died in 2008 after his father left him in a car in broiling heat for hours. The father was found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter. A Russian television report showed Yakovlev's blind grandmother who claimed that the U.S. family that adopted her grandson forged her signature on documents allowing them to take the boy outside Russia.

Russian lawmakers argue that by banning adoptions to the U.S. they would be protecting children and encouraging adoptions inside Russia. In a measure of the virulent anti-U.S. sentiment that has gripped parts of Russian society, a few lawmakers went even further, claiming that some Russian children were adopted by Americans only to be used for organ transplants and become sex toys or cannon fodder for the U.S. Army.

Americans involved in adoption of Russian children find the new legislation upsetting. Bill Blacquiere, president of New York City-based Bethany Christian Services, one of the largest adoption agencies in the U.S., said he hopes Putin won't sign the bill. "It would be very sad for kids to grow up in orphanages," Blacquiere said. "And would hurt them socially, psychologically and mentally. We all know that caring for children in institutions is just not a very good thing."

Joyce Sterkel, who runs a Montana ranch for troubled children adopted abroad and has adopted three Russian children herself, said she is concerned for the estimated 700,000 children who live in state-run institutions in Russia. "I would prefer that the Russians take care of their own children. I would prefer that people in the United States take care of their own children," Sterkel said Wednesday. "But if a suitable home cannot be found in that country, it seems reasonable that a child should be able to find a home outside."

Russian Adoption Ban

If you haven't heard, Russia is very close to coming to an agreement to ban US citizens from adopting in their country. --Kids like Andrei--and those I've "met" through others' blogs: Aidan, Dasha, Hayden, Oliver, Dima, Clara Jane, and so many others. The fact that Russian officials are so much more interested in making a political statement rather than looking out for the well being of their orphans blows me away. I don't understand that logic. Even if I hadn't adopted, I still wouldn't have understood it. The only difference would be I wouldn't have known.

Here is a brief run down: On December 20, 2012, I Alexander D'Jamoos created Voice of the Child petition in response to legislation in Russia which would end intercountry adoption and take away the chance that many children might have to be adopted by US citizens. For those unfamiliar with what is happeneing in Russia, On December 21, 2012, Russia's legislature overwhelming supported the proposed Federal Law No 186614-6, also known as the Dima Yakovlev Law, which includes dissolving the current Bi-lateral Agreement on Adoption and bans the adoption of Russian children by US Citizens. The proposed Russian law contains other provisions that bar travel and the running of NGOs by US citizens. Dima Yakovlev Law was written in retaliatory response to the U.S. passage of the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, a bill that imposes sanctions against Russian officials perceived by the U.S. to be guilty of human rights violations in Russia.

Alexander D'Jamoos is a Russian adoptee who is currently a sophomore at the University of Texas in Austin. Please take a few moments to read his petition and consider signing it in support of adoptions from Russia. Click HERE to go to the petition.

Technical Difficulties...

Hopefully reposting will solve some of my lacking technical skills.  Sort of like a do-over!!
Andrei turned 2 this weekend. I can't believe he's two!! It seemed like it was just yesterday we were in that tiny apartment in Krasnoyarsk. He's come such a long way. We all have actually. Watching his transfiguration throughout this year has been short of amazing. He loved his birthday party. I think he knew he was the "star". Here's a short video of his last year....well, more like the last 14 months. I cheated just a bit and put our first trip to meet him on there as well. Doug creid; I even managed to shed a tear--OK, maybe two.  Then my husband asks me, "Why didn't you put pictures of you in there?"  Through gritted teeth I replied,"Because I'm the one always behind the camera!" He's pledged to do better in that arena.  We'll see.

2 Words!

EXCEL SPREADSHEET!  If anyone still reads this blog at all and you have just begun your adoption journey, do yourself a big favor and put all your expenses onto a spreadsheet as you're going along.  I've been going through ours (which has been stuffed in a FED EX tyvek envelope) to tally everything for our IRS tax return.  Trust Momma Shelly on this one!  I have spent this afternoon in adoption receipt hell. 

Oh, and highly intelligent people will label all those Russian receipts while in-country.  I can't tell what is a souvenir and what is cereal.  Should the IRS need to see our actual documents, they'll just have to trust me or find Vladimir to translate. 

Baby House #1

Last week a member of the Kras Yahoo group sent out a request of any who had adopted out of baby house #3.  He was trying to find others who had adopted about the same time and hopefully within their son's orphanage group.  There are approximately 100-150 children in each baby house, but they are grouped together in groups of 15 or so, and they stay within that group their entire tenure there.  Andrei was from the apple group--not their son's group.  We exchanged a few pictures, and I noticed that our children were not from the same orphanage either despite thinking we both were from baby house #3.  We had actually stopped at this orphanage to do paperwork, but then we traveled on to Andrei's orphanage. 

So, we started investigating. How could we both have #3?  There was another mom who had answered the request, and her daughter was from Andrei's orphanage AND was in his groupa!  Even though she brought home her sweet daughter 6 months after we did, she and Andrei would have been in the room together at some point.  So, I think that is pretty awesome that we can show him pictures later of one of his "groupies." 

The dad sent me a link with all the Krasnoyarsk orphanages listed on it.  There were two #3 Baby Houses listed there.  One was the orphanage where we had all been in to do paperwork (the actually orphanage was housed on the 2nd floor of that particular building), and another was listed there with the title Special Baby House #3 for Children with Mental Defectives.  That title just saddened me so much. I don't know if I had ever mentioned this, but an American couple whom we met at the orphanage had told us that this orphanage we were adopting out of was half special needs and half non-special needs.  I assumed, using that information, that this had to be Andrei's orphanage.

I decided to try out Google Earth and see if I could tell if this really was Andrei's orphanage.  I pulled up the address and I couldn't recognize a thing.  Then, this other mother emailed me saying she thought our children's orphanage was  Baby House #1 as she had the actual address of the home.  I remembered Lena, our translator, reading the emblem at the orphanage and telling us it was baby house #1, but there was a #3 at the bottom of the emblem, and I had just always assumed she had misspoken.  So, back to Google Earth in search of Baby House #1.  And what do you know! That one IS Andrei's orphanage!  Here's a snapshot of it:

I even recognized the pharmacy where our coordinator would stop for those simply smashing little blue booties we had to wear.  If you click on the picture, it will enlarge it.  You can vaguely see the wall around the orphanage property.  We entered from the street, would drive through the gate, drive around the east side of the orphanage, and park on the west.  You won't find a parking lot for the workers to park in.  They didn't have cars.  Most of them walked or took the bus. 

(We're still trying to clear up the confusion of #3 being on the emblems.  Jenn has an email to our translator to see if we can get an explanation.)

The emblem causing all the trouble!