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Owner59 -> RE: Putin to Gays; Get Your Kids Elsewhere (3/30/2013 7:39:33 PM)
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Not the 1st time the ruskies are being dicks, holding these kids hostage over this and that issue.....
http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/20/russia-threatens-ban-on-u-s-adoptions/
"A law that would prohibit adoptions of Russian children by United States citizens passed Russia’s lower house of Parliament on Wednesday. The bill (in retaliation for a new United States law that seeks to punish Russian citizens who are accused of violating human rights) still faces two more legislative votes, and President Vladimir V. Putin has evaded the question of whether or not he would sign it.
In adoption forums, prospective adoptive parents are already asking one another what this could mean and sharing the advice of their adoption agencies. Most hope this will blow over, but history suggests some reasons could unofficially slow or suspend adoptions in process while waiting for a final word.
The Russian adoption process involves three visits to the country: the first to meet a child, a second to visit the child and obtain a court date, and a third to bring the child back to the United States. (Some adoption agency sites describe only two trips.) The result is that a ban on United States adoptions (which has been threatened before, most recently in 2010, when adoptions were suspended after a 7-year-old boy was sent back to Russia on a plane by himself by his adoptive mother) threatens families that have already begun to form.
When adoptions were suspended in 2010, more than 250 American families were in the final process of adopting children — children they had already met and made commitments to. At that time, The Times reported that as many as 3,500 children were at some point in the process with some 3,000 families. It’s reasonable to assume that the numbers are somewhat smaller now, as United States adoptions from Russia slowed but didn’t stop, while the two countries worked to ratify a bilateral adoption treaty, which became effective on Nov. 1, 2012. But even if this is only political posturing, every one of the families waiting to secure ties must feel jeopardized.
This time, Russia’s foreign minister has opposed the proposed ban, as has its education and science minister, who pointed out (via Twitter) that such a ban would harm Russian children who cannot find homes in their own country. This year, NPR reported that more than 100,000 Russian children live in dormitory-like orphanages. Many news-media sources, from Al Jazeera to ABC, report that there are 740,000 children living outside of parental custody in Russia, citing Unicef as a source."
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