Whatever Things Are True: the Good, the Bad and the Beautiful in the World of International Adoption

Crushing News Out of Kyrgyzstan for Adoptive Families

Twenty-one members of Congress sent a letter on February 9 to the Prime Minister and President of Kyrgyzstan, where more than 60 adoptions by American families have been stalled for the past four years. At least two children have died in institutional care during the long wait; now it appears the Kyrg government has placed some of the children matched with US families in domestic adoption. Here is the bulk of the letter; the last line I've excerpted is the kicker:

Kyrgyz President Signs Law Allowing Foreign Adoption and Freeing Delayed Cases to Go Forward

Good news from Kyrgyzstan has unfortunately arrived too late for a couple of special needs children who were caught in bureaucratic limbo for nearly three years:

 

In 2009, the government put a moratorium on international adoptions after some alleged illegal activities were reported by the media.

More than 60 Kyrgyz orphans -- the majority of whom have serious health problems -- have been prevented from joining their adoptive families in the United States since the ban was introduced and have been held in Kyrgyz orphanages until now.

Two of the children who were to be adopted died recently of their health ailments.

 

Kyrgyz President Signs Law Allowing Foreign Adoption - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty © 2011.

A Casualty in the Kyrgyzstan Adoption Stalemate

Eurasianet reports:

There’s a tiny grave near an orphanage on the outskirts of Bishkek. It holds the body of an undersized 2-year-old girl who died in August from complications of a disease that is dangerous, yet often manageable in the United States. The little girl, who had been matched for adoption with a Florida doctor, is a casualty of a moratorium on international adoptions imposed long before Kyrgyzstan became engulfed in turmoil this spring.

The dead girl’s adoption, along with those of 64 other Kyrgyz orphans by American families, had been stalled for roughly two years. After protracted talks, officials on both sides are optimistic that the adoption logjam will finally be broken -- but they all concede that the issue will ultimately need to be resolved by the Kyrgyz legislators who are elected in the nation’s October 10 parliamentary elections.

“The parliament will be back and (proponents of completing these adoptions) have quite a serious lobby there,” Kyrgyzstan’s provisional president, Roza Otunbayeva, told EurasiaNet.org on September 23. Otunbayeva was in New York for the 65th United Nations General Assembly.

Kyrgyz officials are currently reviewing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) prepared by the US State Department that, if signed by both governments, would expedite the adoptions of the 64 orphans. Ambassador Susan Jacobs, The State Department’s Special Advisor for International Children’s Issues, presented the MOU in mid-September to different Kyrgyz ministries during a special trip to Bishkek.

The rest of the story is available here.

New International Adoption Rules Won't Solve Russia's Problems

Everywhere you turn, there's speculation and concern about Russia's new international adoption regulations. It's not that there's anything wrong with the rules themselves, but rather that so many serious, related child welfare issues remain unaddressed. This Moscow News article, "Adoption Changes Risk Ignoring Plight of Orphans in Russia" by Tom Washington, lays it out pretty succinctly:

Russia is experiencing an enormous child welfare crisis --

There are now 700,000 orphans [in the country], 30 per cent of them living in state homes, according to figures from the parliamentary committee on family and children – more than at the end of World War II. Pro rata it’s four to five times higher than in the west.

Committee bosses describe it as a “humanitarian catastrophe”, and it’s one which childcare workers fear is being hidden by the lurid headlines.

Post-adoption follow up is not enough --

The scrunity (sic) won’t stop when the child leaves Russia. “It’s important that we can monitor the situation in the family until the child reaches 18,” Director of Education Alina Levitskaya told Kommersant...

But reports on the children’s progress are meaningless, says psychologist Galina Semya. The earlier reports on the children in Russia are less rigorous and so there is nothing to compare the American checks with. 

That last point -- the earlier reports on the children in Russia are less rigorous and so there is nothing to compare the American checks with -- really jumped out at me. Providing comprehensive child evaluations to prospective adoptive parents seems critical to promoting successful child placements, but Russian officials don't appear to be considering this.

A new UNICEF report, Blame and Banishment: The Underground HIV Epidemic Affecting Children in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, further underscores the child welfare crisis in Russia and its neighboring countries. As law professor Sara Dillon points out on her blog:

this region has "the highest rate of family separation in the world," --  with 1.3 with 1.3 million children living out of family care. Rates of institutionalization are not decreasing–rather, abandonment is increasing. 

I fully understand Russia's anguished outrage over the Artyem Savelyev case, but looking at these grim statistics, I can't help but feel that the case has also become the  outlet for ALL of Russia's anguish and frustration in the child welfare arena. Demanding post-adoption changes from the US is no doubt easier and cheaper than finding the strategies, the will and the money to attack overwhelming, tragic problems at home.

Kyrgyzstan: Prime Minister Chudinov Pledges Action on Stalled International Adoptions

Eurasia Net reports that the Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan, Igor Chudinov, has pledged to allow stalled international adoptions from the country to move forward.  The Prime Minister met with US Senators Brownback and Casey on a recent trip to Washington. Sixty-five American adoption cases from Kyrgyzstan have been on hold for more than a year while the country has been developing a new intercountry adoption framework.

JCICS Urges Families with Stalled Adoptions from Kyrgyzstan to Call Congress

The Joint Council on International Children's Services is urging families with delayed adoptions from Kyrgystan to call their Congressional reprentatives today to ask them to sign a letter being delivered to the Kyrgyz Embassy in Washington tomorrow. The Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan will visit the US next week; the letter asks that the PM meet with members of Congress to discuss the adoption issue. See earlier posts on Kyrgyzstan for further information on the delays.

Adoption Reform Leaves Kyrgyz orphans, American families, in Limbo

This story out of Kyrgyzstan hits way too close to home for me. In-process adoptions from the Central Asian country have been put on hold while the government investigates reports of illegalities and overhauls its system. A number of American adoptive parents have visited their intended children there only to have to leave them behind as negotiations drag on. It's unclear if the government will eventually allow these adoptions to go forward. As is often the case, UNICEF is at the center of the crisis; the UN agency has a long history of opposing international adoption in practice, though their official position is one of lukewarm endorsement.

UNICEF was also involved in the closing of international adoption from the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh in 2003. In our struggle at that time to bring our intended daughter home, I  spent hours and hours and hours meeting with UNICEF officials in India, as did other involved adoptive parents. I like to think our efforts did some small good. At least in Kyrgyzstan, UNICEF is calling for the cases in which the adoptive parents have met the child to be processed.