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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. [a written letter]
The boy, Artyom Savelyev, was put on a plane by his adopted grandmother, Nancy Hansen of Shelbyville.
8-Year-old adopted Russian boy Artyom Savelyev gets into a minivan
outside a police department office in Moscow (Rossia 1 TV)
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.
The cases have prompted outrage in Russia, where foreign adoption failures are reported prominently. Russian main TV networks ran extensive reports on the latest incident in their main evening news shows.
Any possible freeze could affect hundreds of American families. Last year, nearly 1,600 Russian children were adopted in the United States.
“We’re obviously very troubled by it,” U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in Washington when asked about the boy’s case. He told reporters the U.S. and Russia share a responsibility for the child’s safety and Washington will work closely with Moscow to make sure adoptions are legal and appropriately monitored.
Asked if he thought a suspension by Russia was warranted, Crowley said, “If Russia does suspend cooperation on the adoption, that is its right. These are Russian citizens.”
A children’s home in the city of Partizansk, the Primorsky Territory (Far East Russia)
“It is a monstrous deed on the part of his adoptive parents, to take the child and virtually throw him onto an airplane heading in the opposite direction. To say, `I’m sorry I could not cope with it, take everything back’ is not only immoral but also against the law,” Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview with ABC News.
“We should understand what is going on with our children or we will totally refrain from the practice of adopting Russian children by American adoptive parents. I can only say we are alarmed by the tendency.”
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Right, from the article in The Guardian …
“You know, you look at it and it’s hard to say exactly if a law has been broken here,” Bedford county sheriff Randall Boyce said. “This is extremely unusual. I don’t think anyone has seen something like this before.”
Bob Tuke, a Nashville attorney and member of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys, said abandonment charges against the family could depend on whether the adoption had been finalised and the boy was a US citizen.
A Tennessee health department spokeswoman said the situation was unclear because there was no birth certificate issued for the boy, a step that would indicate he had not yet become a US citizen.
Of course, the Russian boy was an illegal alien. The adoptive single mom did us all a favor to avoid further medical costs.
Within a year of the adoption, the Wescotts told the Tulsa World, the child was diagnosed with reactive detachment disorder, disruptive behavior disorder, major depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and fetal alcohol syndrome.
The parents said the boy became violent toward other children and nonresponsive to adults, hurt and killed animals and ran away regularly, requiring help from police.
So they’re trying to return him to the care of the state’s Department of Human Services, but the state says adoptive parents should be treated no different from birth parents.
Adoptive Parents Treated the Same as Biological Ones, State Says “A parent is a parent,” Karen Poteet, who runs the state’s post-adoption program, said. “It doesn’t matter where the child came from.”
Poteet says all parents are warned that the children they are adopting were abused or neglected and that the symptoms of that treatment could manifest themselves years later.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
From my diary – US only Holdout on UN Child Rights Treaty
Tue Nov 24th, 2009 at 01:20:27 AM PDT
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
“What happens when you adopt a child who has difficulties in his or her new home? Typically, you try to work it out, right? But what if the child is abusive, violent and even threatens to kill his parents and siblings? That’s where a ‘Ranch for Kids’ comes in. It’s a ranch in Montana that tries to rehabilitate troubled adopted youth.” AC360
EUREKA, Montana — At first glance, the children saddling up the horses look like they were cast by Hollywood to play wholesome, athletic all-American kids. But outward appearances don’t tell the whole story.
One has molested a sibling. Another has tried to kill the family pet. Lying, stealing, vandalism, fire-setting round out the list of transgressions.
Because their parents can no longer manage them at home, the 24 youngsters — almost all international adoptees — have ended up at the Ranch for Kids, a therapeutic boarding school in northwest Montana.
This is the final stop.
Most had already logged countless hours in psychiatric units, wilderness programs and residential treatment centers, searching for answers to their disturbing behaviors. The goal is that, through intense intervention and structure, their conduct will improve enough that they can go home.
But some will never return, moving on to new families. They are part of an expanding phenomenon known as adoption disruption — the official term for parents attempting to return their adoptive children.
“Some parents just can’t do it anymore; they’re done,” said Joyce Sterkel, who runs the Ranch for Kids. “It’s tragic . . . and everyone is a victim.”
No one appears to keep data on adoption disruption. Relinquishment is statistically rare among the 20,000 foreign-born children adopted by Americans each year, but experts say it is happening with increasing frequency.
The Ranch for Kids
≈ Cross-posted from my diary @ET with some excellent comments — ‘Return to Sender,’ Adopted Boy One-way Ticket to Moscow ≈
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."