So the whole Russian orphan saga continues apace, manipulated for all its worth by the cunning Ka, with heart-rending stories of families stuck half-way in the process and the outcome uncertain despite an announcement that there may be a year's reprieve, and of course the horrid regime tools trying to justify this.
Nothing justifies this.
A mainstay of the Kremlin trolls is not only that children have died or even been murdered -- and in one case a mother even sent her adopted son back to Russian unaccompanied on a plane. Understood -- and frankly, I wish those arguing in favour of adoptions would look at these cases more and realize that not everyone is a hero-parent, that Russian adoptions are more complicated than they look, and that more support will be required than realized.
There's even a case where a Russian official was denied a consular visit, so we're told (I'd like a second opinion on that).
But all in all, given that there have been some 60,000 adoptions, American adoption of Russian children doesn't seem to be the land-mine-strewn landscape that the Kremlin supporters would have us believe.
Meanwhile, it's instructive to look at the Russian numbers -- they really are staggering. They've been helpfully supplied by Russian bloggers on Facebook, using official sources:
So, translation:
From 1993 through 2008, the last year for which the data is available evidently there were 142,232 children adopted in Russia at home, and 84,691 by foreigners who took them abroad.
In those 15 years, in Russia, 12 Russian children were killed in Russia -- or 0.86%. Abroad, 21 were killed, or 0.025%.
In 2008, 9,048 were adopted in Russia, and 4,125 abroad. Of these, a whopping 7,597 of these children had to be returned to orphanages! Wow! Of this group, 1,244 were returned "in connection with failure to fulfill adoption obligations" -- whatever that means -- and 45 were taken by authorities because of "brutal treatment". Of all of these cases, 4,901 were returned "at the initiative of the parents".
Sure puts into perspective that one case of the American mom who put her adopted son on the plane and sent him back, doesn't it? Not that anything would ever justify such an outrageous act. But -- perspective.
Of all the children adopted in Russia in 2008, only 0.29% or 26 who were adopted were "disabled". We don't know how this was defined, and we don't know if the rest of the population had some kind of developmental delays or learning disabilities; in the Russian context, "disabled" probably means "profoundly disabled".
Foreigners adopted 213 of these "disabled" children, or 5.16% of the total.
As the document notes, these statistics come from the Ministry of Education and adoption agency statistics.
So, a higher percentage of Russian adoptees died at the hand of their adoptive parents, and a huge percentage of Russian adoptions didn't work out -- nearly 80%! In most cases, the parents returned the children, and in some cases authorities had to seize them due to negligence or brutality.
Looks like those symmetrical sanctions are starting to show some teeth. Let's hope the State Duma passes the Agent Brian Terry Accountability Act and the Professor has to get um...uh...when Eric Holder gets banned from ever setting foot in Russia.
http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-russian-guantanamo-list-20130118,0,1877573.story
Posted by: Mr. X | January 20, 2013 at 07:31 PM