Adoption Restrictions Denounced Russian Activists Criticize Move To Tighten Foreigners’ Access

Calling the Russian orphanage system a “cynical conveyor belt of death,” children’s rights activists assailed legislation Wednesday that would tighten restrictions on adoptions by foreigners.

The parliament’s lower house gave preliminary approval last month to a bill that would halt foreign adoptions until Russia signs agreements with other nations on adoption procedures. It also would curb the activities of adoption agencies in Russia.

Communists and other hard-liners who dominate the house say current adoption rules poorly protect children’s rights. They cite two recent U.S. cases of adoptive parents abusing Russian children.

In one, a Colorado woman was convicted of beating to death her adopted Russian toddler and sentenced to 22 years in prison. In the other, an Arizona couple was found to have used excessive force in trying to subdue two adopted 4-year-old Russian daughters on a flight to New York.

But such abuse occurs in Russia, too, said Galina Rybchinskaya, the editor in chief of Protect Me magazine, a journal devoted to children’s rights. Eighteen adopted children in Russia were killed by abusive parents in 1995.

Critics of the bill also say restricting foreign adoptions will leave children languishing in orphanages with limited resources to care for them. There are nearly 600,000 orphans in Russia.

The mortality rate in orphanages is twice as high as for Russian children in general, said Anatoly Severny, president of the Independent Association of Child Psychiatrists and Psychologists.

Many children are wrongly placed in orphanages for the disabled, where they are given medication that often does more harm than good, he said.

“Children who come in on their own two feet, and with the ability to speak, in just six months stop walking and speaking,” Severny told a news conference Wednesday.

Lawmaker and human rights activist Valery Borshchev called the system a “cynical conveyor belt of death.”

Russians rarely adopt disabled children, but foreigners often do because it is easier for them to obtain approval to adopt a sick or disabled child.

Since Russia began allowing foreign adoptions in 1992, it has become the No. 1 source of foreign children adopted by Americans. The U.S. State Department said 3,816 Russian children were adopted in 1997.

“The fate of children in the orphanages for the disabled these days is improved thanks only to foreign adoption,” Severny said.

If the bill is adopted, he added, “The fate of those who could have been saved, but weren’t, will be on our conscience.”

Jan. 25 is the deadline to propose amendments to the bill, and parliament is expected to review it again.