Russian Orphanages Overflow Amid Rumors Of Child Trafficking

by Kester Kenn Klomegah

(IPS) MOSCOW -- Some 700,000 impoverished children eligible for adoption now live in deplorable conditions in orphanages across Russia, according to the Education and Science Ministry.

However, adoptions have declined by about a third so far this year following media reports and accusations by politicians that foreigners were "trafficking" and abusing Russian children.

In response, the country's Education Ministry has launched a new website linking prospective parents with tens of thousands of children desperately in need.

With adoptions by Russians declining and adoptions by foreigners increasing, Education and Science Minister Andrei Fursenko said the publicity campaign -- which includes television advertisements -- would focus on seeking wealthy foreign homes for the children.

"It is very important for orphans and children whose parents don't take great care of them to be able to find parents who will care for them," Fursenko said at a recent ceremony to launch the site.

"All too often, unfortunate orphans are being used as a pretext for unscrupulous political campaigns," he said in a statement. "Suffering children shouldn't be the subjects of such speculation."

The Russian-language site has information about adoption laws, orphanages and agencies that facilitate adoptions. It lists more than 260,000 children who are ready for immediate adoption.

Of 24,770 children adopted last year, 38 percent were adopted by foreigners and 28 percent by Russians unrelated to the children, according to the website. The other 34 percent were adopted by stepparents.

Russia has seen its population decline in the decade since the collapse of Soviet rule due to a low birth rate, and high death and emigration rates. In addition, the shift to a market economy has imposed hardship on most people in the country, with only a few rich prospering, and the end of the state-run health care system has contributed to many children being born with medical problems.

The director of the Rights of the Child Program at Moscow Helsinki Group, Boris Altshuler, said that unfortunately, the state agencies responsible for children's affairs have not worked effectively to improve their welfare.

"There has been a drastic growth in the number of orphans. Every year some 110,000 children lose their parents and a lot more are abandoned," Altshuler told IPS. "The state orphanages cannot handle the influx of children. The institutional care of orphans and disabled children is one of the country's most serious social disasters."

There are also millions of Russian children living in families mired in severe poverty due to economic "reforms," he added.

According to some Russian experts, another problem is inadequate psychological preparation on the part of adopting families for taking in children with behavioral or health problems.

"It's quite another matter that all the adoption-related procedures should be legally observed and that the appropriate mechanism be well devised and that effective control be exercised," chairwoman of the State Duma committee on Family, Women and Children affairs Ekaterina Lakhova told IPS.

She said the agencies' directors were extremely profit-motivated and tended to ignore the legal procedures and safety of adopted children. "It's just money, money, money. Once the child is taken away to the United States, there was nothing like monitoring the adopted children's rights and development abroad."

Since 1990, about 60,000 Russian children have been adopted by foreigners, more than half of them U.S. citizens. However, the number adopted so far this year has dropped.

U.S. Ambassador to Russia Alexander Vershbow said that "consistent with international standards and under current circumstances, international adoption remains one of the optimal solutions for this problem."

"At the same time, we will continue to support all efforts to advocate placement of Russian orphans with Russian families," Vershbow told a roundtable conference on human rights in Moscow.

"To that end, changes in legislation and procedures governing international adoption should not be designed to discourage international adoption, but rather to encourage local adoption," Vershbow said.

The foreign ministry said it supported the adoption of Russian children by foreign parents, but that procedures should be "legally impeccable and transparent."

"There is no reason to object to the adoption of children by foreign citizens, particularly in those instances where no adoptive parents can be found in our country," a ministry spokesman confirmed to IPS.

To ensure that the children are well-placed, bilateral agreements should be concluded with the countries -- the United States, Canada, Italy, Spain and others -- whose citizens adopt the largest number of Russian children, the spokesman added.

His statement came amid fevered criticism by some politicians and the news media that Russian children were being "bought" and then abused by foreigners.

Last spring, the Russian media heavily covered the case of Irma Pavlis, a Chicago woman sentenced to 12 years in the abuse-related death of her adopted Russian son, Alex, in 2003.

Russian prosecutor general Vladimir Ustinov recently accused about a dozen adoption agencies of having expired licenses and stripped them of their accreditation. They include the U.S.-based International Christian Adoptions and Commonwealth Adoptions International Inc., as well as several Italian, Canadian and Spanish agencies.

However, he backs the idea of signing international treaties with countries whose citizens adopt Russian children to monitor the way such children are treated in their foster families.

Ustinov's office told IPS that he put forward this initiative in response to reports about "rising rates of violence against children adopted by foreign citizens."

"An official report suggests that 13 adopted children from Russia have been killed by foreign citizens over the past few years. Of this figure, 12 incidents have taken place in the United States. And these are only official figures," a spokesman said.