"Rossiiskaya Gazeta": “Orphans abroad”
Control of international adoptions should be improved.
The State Duma addressed the issue of international adoption a day after Russian President Medvedev held a meeting on crimes against children. The lower house said it was "seriously concerned about the death of Russian children adopted by foreign nationals and taken out of Russia."
Following a highly emotional debate, the MPs approved an appeal to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin asking him to speed up the drafting of international treaties on the adoption of Russian children.
Russia is to sign such treaties with each country whose nationals adopt Russian orphans, to stipulate that the host country will monitor the living conditions of each adopted child and supply relevant reports as well as "ensure that the adopted children are registered with the consulates of their country of origin."
The MPs said they could use as a model the agreement on cooperation in the sphere of adoption signed between Russia and Italy, although it had so far not been ratified by the respective parliaments.
Debates on the expediency of interstate agreements on international adoption began long ago. Many analysts and human rights champions do not approve of the idea, and have reacted sharply to the MPs' appeal to the Prime Minister.
Boris Altshuller, a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group and head of The Rights of the Child project, described the appeal as yet another attempt to put off the enforcement of the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption.
"Such agreements can be discussed only after the ratification of the Hague Convention, which Vladimir Putin, then the president of Russia, signed in September 2000," Altshuller said. "Only in this case will we be able to discuss the issue in earnest. First, we will not have enough instruments to influence the host country outside the convention. Practice shows that agreements are mere pieces of paper and cannot ensure sufficient help. Second, in the case of federative states such bilateral agreements without the Hague Convention would put an end to adoption from Russia. Imagine how long it would take to sign such bilateral agreements with 50 US states each of which has its own legislation, courts and judicial system."
We asked Yelena Mizulina, chair of the State Duma Committee on the Family, Women and Children, to explain the situation.
RG: Can the introduction of interstate agreements in Russian practice be viewed as the complication of international adoption, as some media claim?
Yelena Mizulina: Of course, not. Russia has signed the Hague Convention on Intercounry Adoption, and all experts on our committee believe that it is a very good convention that can really help to solve many problems of international adoption. It stipulates the signing of bilateral agreements that should cover the procedure for exchanging information about the life of the adopted children and access of monitoring groups to them.
Russia should ratify it, as 40 countries have already done, but there seem to be some obstacles to that. I do not know what they are, because the Ministry of Healthcare and Social Development, which has the final say, does not provide reasonable arguments that could be accepted or debated. There are also opponents of ratification in the State Duma, although not many.
But we could act differently, that is, sign an agreement on the protection of adopted children with each host country. It could be a good solution, provided the agreement is not prohibitive but protective. There should be no other meaning in such agreements. The United States has a similar agreement with Vietnam. As for the time needed to draft and sign such agreements, it will be greatly shortened after the agreement with Italy comes into force.
RG: What about federative states such as the United States, Canada and Germany? Some experts believe that they will stop adopting Russian children.
Yelena Mizulina: This is not so. The United States last year ratified the Hague Convention and set up a National Committee for Adoption. Unlike Russia, it now has an extra-departmental state committee with the powers embracing all issues pertaining to adoption and the life of adopted children. Since the US has such a federal structure, we will be able to sign a bilateral agreement with the United States although its states have different legislations.
The Hague Convention has long come into force in Germany and Canada, and so I do not believe that signing adoption agreements with Russia will be impossible for them.
RG: So, the ratification of the Hague Convention looks like the most reliable mechanism for protecting adopted Russian children. Will the State Duma address this issue?
Yelena Mizulina: This is what I have been doing all along. Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, and I sent a request to the Government last year asking why it was taking so long to ratify the Hague Convention.
At that time, the convention's opponents were telling the people that it would allow same-sex families to adopt children, which is absolutely untrue. There is no clause to this effect in the convention. Moreover, if some people fear this would become possible, the State Duma can adopt a federal law ratifying the convention with a proviso specifically banning such adoption.
I do not think we will ever stop insisting that the Hague Convention must be ratified.
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Reference note
In 2007, Russian authorities exposed 3,569 cases of maltreatment of children, with 93 adoptive and foster parents, guardians and custodians called to account. Of that number, 27 were tried for actions that resulted in death or severe damage to the health of adopted children.
Between 1996 and 2008, fifteen children adopted from Russia died in the United States.
