east 32_Orphans:AWorld of Hurt pdf

RUSSIA . 2
The mistreatment and death of several Russian children adopted by U.S.-based parents
into American families. Experts call the idea of blocking
U.S. adoptions unrealistic given the sheer numbers.
At the same time, adoption is big business with a marketplace dimension. Russian media sources say the going rate for a healthy Vladivostok child is $2,000. With
corruption rampant in Russia, adoption protocols are difficult to monitor. Most adoptions are handled in private, with deals brokered between local Russian orphan-
has focused attention on the weak adoption protocols between Moscow and Washington.
LEFT Children from Khabarovsk Children’s Home
Orphans:
A World of Hurt
.
who have been adopted by foreigners.
Despite high-level rhetoric, the adoption
BELOW Children playing in a dorm room
process is still riddled with “supermarket”
at the orphanage in the Russian town of Kineshma.
ages and outside bidders. Only adoptions to Italy are regulated by bilateral, intergovernmental agreements that
set terms and standards.
That adoptions are mostly in private hands increases
the chance of corruption and intensifies the perception
of the adoption process as a transaction alone. Fifteen
adopted Russian children have died in the United States,
four of them from the eastern region of Irkutsk. Abuse has
been mentioned prominently. Stricter ground-rules, experts say, could minimize the risk of a child landing in
an abusive household, as well as declaring a child unfit
for adoption. Children returned to orphanages face additional psychological trauma of double-rejection, first by
their birth parents and then by their adoptive ones.
values and Russia’s threat to freeze U.S.
adoptions remains a hollow one.
.
by Cristina Giuliano
n September 2009, seven-year-old Artem Saveliev was
lifted from a grim Siberian orphanage and apparently
given a new life in Shelbyville, Tennessee. But seven
months later, his adoptive mother Torry-Ann Hansen, a
34-year-old nurse, put him on a 10-hour flight as an unaccompanied minor with a “to whom it may concern”
letter that concluded: “I no longer wish to parent this
child.” In the type-written note, which the disoriented
blond boy was still clutching when Moscow police
picked him up, Hansen said she wanted the adoption annulled and accused the Vladivostok orphanage of misleading her about the extent of child’s behavioral problems. “This child is mentally unstable,” she wrote.
Human nature is both diverse and complicated. Just as
it can witness acts of infinite goodness, including the
adoption and rearing of a troubled orphan, it can also
proffer its share of Artem stories.
Artem’s fate immediately enraged Russian public
opinion. As a result, Moscow said it would regulate
adoptions based on bilateral pacts signed with individual nations. So far, Russia has signed only one such agreement, with Italy.
During the Artem scandal, Russian Communist Party
deputy Nina Ostozhenka openly urged President Vladi-
38 . east . europe and asia strategies
Itar-Tass / Corbis / Zolotaryov Y.
I
Itar-Tass / Corbis / V. Smirnov
mir Putin to immediate freeze the adoption of Russian orphans by U.S. citizens. Her public plea focused attention
not only on a grey area of bilateral ties between the two
states, but also on laxity by local Russian officials.
Official databases put the number of Russian orphans
at 700,000, though unofficial suggest the figure is closer to
a million. Over a two-year span, some 30,000 were adopted, only to be returned to their orphanage. The U.S. leads
the adoption list, with some 50,000 children welcomed
number 32 . october 2010 . 39
Italy’s Good Example
Afp / Getty Images / C Kleponis
I
T
40 . east . europe and asia strategies
ABOVE A group of orphan children
from Russia and Khazakhstan
arrive at Dulles International Airport
outside Washington in July 2000.
I
talians agencies specifically avoid
Russian regions known for endemic
corruption and lack on monitoring.
“There has to be transparency, particularly when it comes to costs,” says Nunziata. Each item on the adoption protocol list, including visa costs, travel expenses and gifts, must be documented.
“In all, most adoptions run about
but the figures are broken
down, available, and fully transparent.”
There’s also the delicate matter of the
gift, or donation, given by parents to the
home where the adopted child was
raised. The payment is seen as a nod to
local social practices. Gifts are the norm
in Russian culture, and most couples
earmark their payment to assist less
fortunate children who remain in the orphanage (though it’s admittedly impossible to monitor how individual orphanages use their gift money.)
Italy remains the only nation with
which Moscow has a broad-based deal
governing all aspects of the adoption
process. Spain and U.S., for example,
continue using more decentralized
methods, removed from government
bureaucracy. “I’m not ruling out the
worth of mixed systems, private and
public,” concludes Nunziata. “But the
truth is that the Russian-Italian agreement hasn’t made things more difficult
for prospective parents of orphan children. On the contrary.”
€10,000,
.
FACING PAGE Children asleep in the Kineshma orphanage.
Russia has weighed barring adoptions by U.S. families.
before any new adoptions were allowed. He denounced
the way Artem had been treated “as a parcel” and called
for an investigation into the “World Association for Children and Parents,” the group that had overseen the Artem
adoption. U.S. Ambassador to Moscow John Beyrle also
expressed anger and bewilderment at the chain of events.
In practice, however, nothing has changed. The U.S.
embassy in Moscow continues accepting and issuing immigration visas for America-bound orphans. The State
Department has said on its website (http://www.adoption.state.gov/) that an American delegation will travel
to Moscow to discuss the issue with representative of the
Russian foreign, education and justice ministries.
The hope is to limit the chances of recurrence of an
Artem-style incident. In truth, Artem’s unhappy fate fell
well short of the horror that befell Ivan Skorobogatov, also seven. Ivan suffered severe head trauma in a March
fall. His Pennsylvania foster parents, Michael and
Nanette Craver, told police he had inadvertently tumbled
down a flight of stairs. They are now on trial for murder.
Ivan, renamed Nathaniel Michael Craver, died in August
2009 after his parents decided to terminate life support.
Pathologists found over 80 bruises on the boy’s body, 20
alone on the boy’s head. They also found injuries to internal organs and said the child also suffered from extreme
malnutrition. The Cravers told investigators that Ivan was
mentally unstable and routinely hurled himself against
walls or struck himself with blunt objects. Local authorities investigated the story but deemed it implausible. The
Cravers were then indicted on homicide charges.
Itar-Tass / Corbis / V. Smirnov
he United States also a foster family system to incoming children. An adopted child can move among temporary households before a final adoption, increasing the likelihood of adaptation problems.
But the real paradox is that the U.S. produces its own raft
of orphans, some 500,000 annually, most of them black
children. Still, Americans lead the world in the adopting of children from outside its borders.
Russia has its own set of ambiguities and complications. In 2007, there were 3,569 reported cases of child abuse among Russian citizens with adopted children.
Moreover, local authorities have urged families to provide temporary shelter to homeless children and orphans,
offering modest subsidies. No such subsidies exist for
families that choose to take in a child permanently.
Moscow has said it wants to reach an adoption deal
with Washington that would outline rules and procedures. So far, despite considerable official rhetoric, the
Russia-U.S. flow has gone ahead unregulated and uninterrupted. At the time of the Artem fiasco, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was quoted by Russian news agencies, as saying an agreement “on the conditions for adoptions and the obligations of host families” was necessary
talian families adopted 535 Russian
children in 2009, with 143 more in the
first three months of this year. So far,
there have been no reported cases of
repatriation. Nor has either side complained of abuse or mistreatment. Officials say a bilateral adoption deal
reached between Italy and Russia in
2008 has nipped most potential problems in the bud. “In 2008 alone adoptions declined more than 10 percent,
which can be attributed to a kind of
readjustment phase that followed the agreement,” Enrico Nunziata, the Italian
consul general in Moscow, told the Italian news agency AGI. Nunziata said the
deal had made adoptions into a “completely public process” and that Russian officials would use its guidelines to
model similar pacts with other European Union states. Italian parents seeking to adopt a Russian child generally
need to wait about two years, says Nunziata. “The selection process is serious,
so is the examination of the family, and,
once things are approved, the readying
of the child for the move.” Italian law
and bilateral agreement allow adoptions only under the auspices of one of
13 government-authorized agencies. A
child is also tracked following the adoption. “No child falls between the tracks,”
says Nunziata. “There is no child whose
location we don’t know. Events are
sponsored so that adopting families
and their new children come together.”
In addition, Italian social services are
compelled to submit regular reports to
the Russian side to show that the
adopted child “is well and is fitting in
with his new family.” Efforts are also
made to ensure the adopted child “preserves his ties with his native land.”
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number 32 . october 2010 . 41