So you decided to adopt … great. Where are you going to try/struggle/hope/cry to adopt from? Hopefully, you didn’t pick Russia. Like several countries before, Russia has been added to the list of countries no longer accepting adoption applications from the United States. Why? Do they think that we don’t have good enough vodka? Maybe our winters aren’t cold enough? We won’t speculate, but passing on the suggestions in the media, a legislation that included the ban on US adoption was constructed in response to the US Magnitsky Act that put bans on folks that have violated human rights and a few other things. So, how is a ban on human rights violators related to US adoptions? You got us. We have no clue. According to a news source, the US has adopted about 60,000 children from Russia since 1991. Seems like the US has adopted quite a few right? Well, apparently, there are something like 650,000 orphans in Russia … and now there is one less country that can adopt children from there … CRAZY!! The worst bit of it, the several dozen families that have already visited and bonded with their prospective adopted child in Russia but have not completed the process and brought their child home. Check out this news story from January of this year.
From the US, it is a bit unclear what Russian citizens think about this. In January, there was a protest in Moscow against the ban of US adoption of Russian children. At the beginning of March, there was a gathering in Moscow in favor of this ban. This was in direct response to the unfortunate death of a Russian adopted child in Texas.
“I never planned to adopt from Russia, I am adopting from [insert country here]. What do I care!” Well, it is easy math. There are X number of families waiting to adopt a child. If the number of places these families can adopt children from, then the number of families looking to adopt children from any one area must go up. (Math, Candace hates it) This means that wait times could increase across the board for all families waiting to adopt. Regardless of where you are in the adoption process, or where you plan to adopt from, it is safe to say that we should all be advocates for anything that would increase the number of countries that allow US adoptions. If you find any petitions to advocate for international adoption, sign them and let us know. We will sign them too! We will pass any on that we stumble upon. Also, for current information on international adoptions from the US, go to the US Department of State website.
For those families currently in the process of adopting from Russia and unsure of what the outcome of your adoption will be, we will be praying for you.
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