MOSCOW - Russia threatened to suspend all child adoptions by U.S. families Friday after a 7-year-old boy adopted by a woman from Tennessee was sent alone on a one-way flight back to Moscow with a note saying he was violent and had severe psychological problems.Read the rest here.
The boy, Artyom Savelyev, was put on a plane by his adopted grandmother, Nancy Hansen of Shelbyville.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called the actions by the grandmother “the last straw” in a string of U.S. adoptions gone wrong, including three in which Russian children had died in the U.S.
All I can say is that as an American I am embarrassed. Actually as a human being I am embarrassed.
3 comments:
This is all pot and kettle calling from pots and kettles. I know a little something about orphanages in Russia and the CIS (from people that run orphanages there), they have little high ground. Though, of course, neither does this family.
This has been an ongoing problem with adoptions from eastern Europe. In the UK, the focus has been on Romanian orphans, here in the US Russia has been the favored whipping boy for sensationalism. There was a Law & Order about this very problem.
There is another ugly side to this. There are actually plenty of American-born children eligible for adoption, but they lack the cachet that goes with adopting a foreign child. Just bizarre.
People don't want to adopt those American children because they know the handicaps that come with them. The ones from Russia, they think are all good, pure, precious children. Well, the kids from there have problems too. We know a couple who adopted two Russian boys, not brothers, The boys were young like 2 and 4, They spent years, fortunately had the time and money, to resolve problems like stealing and lying - much more than you'd normally expect from a child.
I cannot say what problems the mother in the article had - perhaps something far beyond what we have seen in other places....
It is very sad, but I'm not sure we can be the judge.
My daughter had a friend who was a single mother = the dad left - a son who was about 7 or 8 was so violent that all the furniture in his room was bolted to the floor. There were bars on his window. His mother locked him in his room at night and locked herself and younger daughter in her room at night for fear of him. When she tried to give up parental rights because she was frightened for her and her daughter's safety, the state (Texas) told her that if she gave up the boy, child protective services would also take the girl. Their idea was, if she'd give up one, what was to prevent her from giving up the other later. Now what kind of life/help is that?
Post a Comment