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Subscribe to RSSThose already undergoing the costly process of adopting a child from Russia found out Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law barring any future adoptions, canceling the ones in progress. NBC's Kerry Sanders reports.
President Vladimir Putin signed a law on Friday that bans Americans from adopting Russian children and imposes other measures in retaliation for new U.S. legislation meant to punish Russian human rights abusers.
The law, which has ignited outrage among Russian liberals and children's rights advocates, enters into force on Jan. 1 and is likely to strain U.S.-Russia relations.
As well as banning U.S. adoptions, it will also outlaw some non-governmental organizations that receive U.S. funding and impose a visa ban and asset freeze on Americans accused of violating the rights of Russians abroad.
The law could block dozens of Russian children expected to be adopted by American families from leaving the country and cut off one of the main international routes for Russian children to leave orphanages that are often dismal. Russia is the single biggest source of adopted children in the United States, with more than 60,000 Russian children being taken in by Americans over the past two decades.
The bill is retaliation for an American law that calls for sanctions against Russians deemed to be human rights violators and part of an increasingly confrontational stance by the Kremlin against the West.
Related: Americans may lose right to adopt Russian children
Putin said U.S. authorities routinely let Americans suspected of violence toward Russian adoptees go unpunished — a clear reference to Dima Yakovlev, a Russian toddler for whom the bill is named. The child was adopted by Americans and then died in 2008 after his father left him in a car in broiling heat for hours. The father was found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
Children's rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov on Wednesday said that 46 children who were about to be adopted in the United States would remain in Russia if the bill came into effect. On Thursday, he petitioned the president to extend the ban to other countries.
Courtesy Thomas family
John and Renee Thomas with their son, Jack, 7, who was adopted from Russia at the age of 3. Jack is hoping for his brother, Nikoly, now in a Russian orphanage, to join him in the United States.
Would-be adoptive parents in the United States are left hanging by Putin's signing of the bill, which was passed by Russian lawmakers last week.
Among them are John and Renee Thomas of Minnetonka, Minn., Kari Huus of NBC News reported. The Thomases have already adopted Jack, 7, from Russia. When they found out he had a little brother, they began the process to try to adopt him, too. The wait has stretched to four years, and now the adoption may be in danger.
"When Jack is asked about his family, he talks about his brother," John Thomas said. "He always asks, 'When is he coming home?' We just tell him we’re waiting for the call."
More: Adoption of little brother caught in US-Russia spat
UNICEF estimates that there are about 740,000 children without parental custody in Russia, while only 18,000 Russians are now waiting to adopt a child.
Russian President Vladamir Putin has said he'll sign a proposed law that would halt adoptions of Russian children to Americans. NBC's Duncan Golestani reports.
The U.S. State Department on Thursday repeated its opposition to the Russian measure.
"The welfare of children is simply too important to tie to the political aspects of our relationship," State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said. "Additionally, we are deeply troubled by the provisions in the bill that would restrict the ability of Russian civil society organizations to work with American partners."
Critics of the bill left dozens of stuffed toys and candles outside the parliament's lower and upper houses to express solidarity with Russian orphans.
An online petition urging the Kremlin to scrap the bill garnered more than 100,000 Russian signatures.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Leave a Comment:
Shame on Putin, using children as pawns.
Anybody that says anything other than this is a stupid policy is an idiot. Leave your "hate america" to other posts.
I can assure you that my parents, who adopted me from S. Korea are far from greedy... Adoption from ANY country is a wonderful, self-less thing.
Finally, a voice of reason.
Please become a voice for the children of the world, they have done nothing wrong and deserve only happiness and health. Use your personal experience to help them!!!
Actually, the above posters are right about US citizens adapting American children first. Thee can appreciate how orphaned kids in dead, worthless countries like Russia and Russia live in horrid squalor; however, American kids are OUR kids first and foremost.
This being said, Thee still says Screw you Putin and Screw you Mother Russia. Thee means that in a nice way of course. Not really.
Screw YOU Vladdy!!
Thee Ox & Friends
Vladimir Putin himself is the 'poison' in the US/Russia ties. Let's just stop allowing Russians into the US. People who want to adopt should be required to adopt an American kid, instead of going out shopping for an 'exotic orphan' to adopt.
"Exotic orphan"???? have you tried to adopt here??? It is real hard. You have no intelligence on this matter so go to a new post and spout your nonsense
It's harder to adopt from Russia now. Bruno.
Try harder.
If you want to adopt, adopt US kids.
Yes, Viewer_Ready, it might be harder now to adopt from Russia rather than from within the U.S. considering, you know, the article we all just read. But it wasn't before.
Why are you trying to pick fights with everyone?
Why do you think I am picking fight?
I made a comment and was attacked.
How does that make me the aggressor?
America enforces her beliefs upon the world while it's citizens murder helpless children in the streets. We don't have any business telling anyone how to live until we clean up our house. How would you feel being told what you should or shouldn't do by Hillary Clinton? Is this a joke?
Even if we clean up our own house we have no business at all telling others what to do with their lives.
why should we even care if they ban americans from adopting russian kids when americans should be adopting children from the US in the first place. There are plenty of kids here looking to be adopted and have a better life.
Because Americans spend more time worrying about what someone else can or can't do then they do about themselves. Do as I say and not as I do. With all the broken families and divorces in this Country it appears to me that our people hate children.
joeki...how many have you adopted again? Just wonderin'....
Damn. How are the Russians going to get "moles" into this country now? Everybody knows they indoctrinate children from birth to be spys and assassins so they can attack "truth, justice and the American way". I was adopted and from time to time I have a strange urge to pull my face off and reveal who I really am underneath. Seriously, I was adopted and no doubt I grew up a different and better person than I would have had I stayed with my birth mother...I know who my birth parents are and they would not have given me the same opportunities or guidance. I think I was created over a few beers and then became a problem when the seed was sown. Thanks to my "real" parents, the ones who took me and raised me.
From one adoptee to another...
I will never know who my birth parents are/were but I can say with absolute certainty that my life too, would be completely different had I not been adopted--and it would definitely have been for the worse.
Being a parent is not a matter of blood,though that can factor into it in some cases--it's a matter of love, of those who sacrifice in order to choose you/adopt you and raise you. Those bonds are the ones that really matter.
Thank you Putin for pointing out time and time again that America has no moral authority nor business sticking their noses in the affairs of their neighbors business. Keep those nukes on standby less they begin to want what you have. Alot of that going on nowadays here.
How the *uck is the father who left his kid in a boiling car not guilty? He should be stuck in a hot car until his brains melt.
Was it not a crime because it was an adopted kid or something?
I couldn't figure that one out either.
maybe putin can get the russians to adopt some of the syrian orphans since his beloved country stops anything that could be useful to stop the slaughter of women and children
Using children as political pawns - how despicable. But then, that's what you get with a former KGB officer in charge. You can take the man out of the communist state, but you cant take communism out of the man.
"I hope the Russian's love their children too"
Sting
An orphaned girl will govern Russia someday & "Putin's KGB skeletons" will come out of the closet. It will be a Best Seller!
Why don't Americans adopt AMERICAN orphans?
Oh, silly me, I forgot. Selfish Americans don't want CHILDREN - they want little infant dolls to satisfy their massive egos. Daddies MUST give in to the frantic "mothers" who simply cannot feel whole or fulfilled unless they get to play "mommy" from the very beginning. They are obsessed people desperate enough to jump through ridiculous hoops to satisfy their delusional fixation.
Get a puppy. You'll screw that up, too, but the worse that can happen there is that it will crap on someone's lawn, and not end up as some mass murderer.
Whoa.
Up until WWII women were told their place was in the kitchen. There was tremendous pressure to stay home and be the perfect young housewife. The average American family in Norman Rockwell paintings, TV shows like 'Leave It To Beaver' and 'The Andy Griffith Show' showed the male going out to work and the woman staying home with the children. it wasn't a delusional fixation, it was societical pressure based on religious mores that forced women to conform to an ideal. after WWII, however, particularly in Europe when there were a lot fewer men around, it became necessary for men to work.
Being 'selfish' would be to have money and wealth and choose not to share it with a deserving child; to choose NOT to try and instruct, mentor, guide and love the next generation of people.
Wow, why can't the USA and Russia act more mature about this and just meet in the schoolyard after school and settle this like little boys? OMG, I can't believe that world leaders have become so reactionary. They would cut off their own noses if it would spite their faces. How could we, as a species, elect people like Putin and Obama? At what point does this sort of poor leadership become a failing on the voters rather than the elected leaders?
This is no suprise from the land of Lenin and Stalin. I can only imagine Putin saying as often quoted in the movie Dr. Shivago....."it does'nt matter".
Trust me on this one, you pony up the bucks you can get a Russian kid.
Who in the world cares? Plenty of U S children need parents. Much ado about nothing.
If adopting here was not such a money mill for lawyers and agencies people WOULD adopt here instead of overseas. The process here is broken to the point most cannot afford it monetarily or for the time involved. We should take care of the children here and allow the same to happen in the other countries.
Thats bull jazz.
No problem Putin. Why adopt a Russian child in the first place?
Every abandoned child needs a home, why do you care where an adopted child came from? Until you've walked in someone else's shoes, you are just spouting off.
How many kids have died in Russian orphanages because of the lack of basic necessities ?
Using orphaned children as political pawns?
The Evil Empire is back!!!