The U.S. and Russia Sign New Adoption Agreement

The New York Times reports a new adoption accord signed by both countries today:
Ending a Rift, Russia and the United States Sign Adoption Accord

Update on Mother Who Returned Adopted Son to Russia

Torry Hansen, the Tennessee woman who adopted a little boy from Russia and then sent the 7year-old back, alone, with a note stating she no longer wanted him, is preventing him from being adopted again in Russia.  Adoption Institute writes that "Hansen refuses to terminate her parental rights, reports Natalya Krainova in a January 19 Moscow Times article titled 'Boy Sent to Russia Can't Be Adopted.' According to the story, U.S. prosecutors are attempting to terminate Hansen's parental rights, but she is refusing to do so in an attempt to avoid making child support payments. In the wake of the scandal, adoptions from Russia to the U.S. were slowed and a new bilateral agreement governing such adoptions is being drafted. For the article, go to: http://bit.ly/gAHZcr . For previous coverage, go to: http://bit.ly/dnHOgt  and http://bit.ly/ekxfbJ . To read the Institute's press release calling for the "thoughtful, expeditious" resumption of Russia adoptions, go to: http://bit.ly/9XiMl3.

Record Low in International Adoptions

Adoptive Families Magazine reports that 2010 was a year of record low international adoptions.

The number of intercountry adoptions by Americans fell 13 percent in the past year—from 12,753 to 11,059—to reach a 15-year low, according to data from the U.S. Department of State. Adoptions from China continued to head the list, with 3,401 adoptions to the U.S. in 2010. Rounding out the top five sending countries are Ethiopia (2,513), Russia (1,082), South Korea (863), and Ukraine (445).

Latest Adoption Cost and Wait Time Data from Adoptive Families Magazine

Adoptive Families Magazine has released the results of their annual survey on adoption costs and wait times.  It includes both domestic and international adoption.  It seems the least expensive way to adopt is through the U.S. Foster Care system and the most expensive is adopting from Russia. 

Read the survey results here.

Why every Christian Is called to Rescue Orphans.

Abba Changes Everything by Russell D. Moore
(This article is part of ChristianityToday's July issue featuring adoption and orphan care.)

"The creepiest sound I have ever heard was nothing at all. My wife, Maria, and I stood in the hallway of an orphanage somewhere in the former Soviet Union, on the first of two trips required for our petition to adopt. Orphanage staff led us down a hallway to greet the two 1-year-olds we hoped would become our sons. The horror wasn't the squalor and the stench, although we at times stifled the urge to vomit and weep. The horror was the quiet of it all. The place was more silent than a funeral home by night.

I stopped and pulled on Maria's elbow. "Why is it so quiet? The place is filled with babies." Both of us compared the stillness with the buzz and punctuated squeals that came from our church nursery back home. Here, if we listened carefully enough, we could hear babies rocking themselves back and forth, the crib slats gently bumping against the walls. These children did not cry, because infants eventually learn to stop crying if no one ever responds to their calls for food, for comfort, for love. No one ever responded to these children. So they stopped.

The silence continued as we entered the boys' room. Little Sergei (now Timothy) smiled at us, dancing up and down while holding the side of his crib. Little Maxim (now Benjamin) stood straight at attention, regal and czar-like. But neither boy made a sound. We read them books filled with words they couldn't understand, about saying goodnight to the moon and cows jumping over the same. But there were no cries, no squeals, no groans. Every day we left at the appointed time in the same way we had entered: in silence."

Read full article here.

40 percent decline in overseas adoptions by Americans since 2004

Idaho's Impact
Haiti scandal overshadows bigger threat to evangelical adoption efforts.
from Christianity Today

The high-profile legal saga of the 10 Idaho-based Baptists arrested in January for attempting to smuggle 33 Haitian children into the Dominican Republic is winding down. But evangelical adoption advocates wonder what the long-term impact will be.

Leading orphan care advocate Russell Moore suggested in the days following the arrests that the scandal might be a black eye to evangelicals' adoption efforts worldwide. But two months later, Moore said he is no longer worried about a fallout.

"In many ways, the controversy served as an opportunity to clarify what we mean and what we do not mean," said Moore, dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. "No one in the Christian orphan care community is calling for children to be adopted who are not in fact orphans. And no one is calling for children to be adopted apart from the legitimate processes."

A larger hurdle for international adoptions by evangelicals may be new restrictions on adoptions in countries where they have been most prevalent, including China, Guatemala, Russia, Vietnam, and Liberia.

China, which has traditionally accounted for the majority of adoptions to the U.S., rewrote its qualifications for adoptive parents in 2007. Guatemala, the second-largest source of American adoptions, completely shut down its program in 2008 due to widespread corruption, though it will launch a new adoption system this June. Since 2004, these and other restrictions have resulted in a 40 percent decline in overseas adoptions by Americans—from an all-time high of almost 23,000 in 2004 to fewer than 12,800 in 2009, according to the U.S. State Department.

Read the complete article here:  http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/may/2.14.html?start=1

Learn about the Challenges of International Adoption

NPR's The Diane Rehm Show devoted an hour of it's April 14, 2010 show to the challenges of international adoption.  The guests include Thomas DiFilipo, president and C.E.O. of Joint Council on International Children's Services; Janice Goldwater, founder and Executive Director of the non-profit organization Adoptions Together; and  Jane Aronson, a pediatrician who specializes in adoption medicine and orphaned children and is also the founder and C.E.O. of Worldwide Orphans Foundation (WWO).

You may link to and listen to the show here:  http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-04-14/international-adoption

Parents are Moving Forward with Their Russian Adoptions

From CNN:
To Russia, for love: Adoptive parents on edge as suspension threatened
By Jessica Ravitz
Valera remembered being left in the Russian snow. How he lost his lower arms and some of his toes, he wasn't always sure. At times, he said he was in a fire. The truth of what the 14-year-old experienced in his early years, no one will ever know.

The orphanage where he lives said Valera was abandoned as a small child at a hospital in St. Petersburg, Russia. He had gangrene, the result of meningitis and an infection, which forced amputations. He was released to the orphanage in Nizhny Lomov, where he's waited nine years for parents and a home to call his own.
On Saturday, Stephen Jack and his wife, Christine, will leave their Goldsboro, North Carolina, home to fly to Russia, the final step in a 15-month journey they hope will give the boy what he's always wanted.

"Having never seen him and only knowing a little bit about him, I still feel attached to that child," said Jack, 53, who already has six children, four of them adopted. "I understand he can talk his way into your heart and mind in no time. When the world is opened up for him, who knows what his capabilities and possibilities are? ... If all goes well, on the 21st he becomes my son."

It is a trip the Jacks will take with trepidation.

The actions Thursday of a Tennessee woman who put her adopted 7-year-old son on a plane and returned him to Russia, saying he was violent and that officials misled her family, puts Americans in the process of adopting from Russia on edge. Officials in Moscow have threatened to suspend all American adoptions and the Jacks face a two-week process involving a court appearance and loads of paperwork before they can fly home with Valera.

"What this woman did to us is put us on pins and needles," Jack said. "My wife has been beside herself, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't concerned."

The adoptions of about 3,000 Russian children by Americans are in progress, according to Tom DiFilipo, president of the Joint Council on International Children's Services, an advocacy group for children in need of families. Russia is the second country this year, after Haiti, in which adoptions have been thrown into a tailspin.

No suspension has been announced, but mere talk of such a recommendation spawned a campaign on Monday by the council to galvanize the adoption community and child advocates. People are being encouraged to sign a letter to President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (which will be presented to them Wednesday morning), post blogs and share videos about adoption successes.

"Our message is this is an isolated incident. The adoption system did not fail. What failed was the decision-making process of this adoptive mother," DiFilipo said. What Torry Hansen of Tennessee did is "outrageous and indefensible, and not indicative of the average adoptive parent. One-hundred-thousand people adopt every year. I don't know of another case like this."

The case has rocked the adoption community.

"I talked to parents yesterday, and they're just devastated," said Deborah Gray, a child and family therapist, trainer and author, based in Seattle, Washington, who has 20-plus-years experience working on attachment, trauma and grief issues.

"It makes it seem like these kids are defective, that adoption itself is not a permanent status. ... It's a public embarrassment," she said. "The vast majority of families are enriched by adoption. To have this kind of approach is really off the wall. I can't understand why it would have gotten to this point."

Adoptive parents can feel overwhelmed during transition
She and other advocates said they wish Hansen had reached out for assistance and tapped services available for parents before shipping the child back to Russia after six months.

"There are so many services that were available to her. She could have contacted FRUA [Families for Russian and Ukrainian Adoption] which is a resource-rich place, gotten a good psychiatric assessment, including hospitalization if necessary to figure out what made this little guy tick," Gray said.

The incident may have been a wake-up call to agencies and those in the adoption community to make sure adoptive families are prepared for challenges and have resources for help lined up in advance, especially if they live in rural parts of the country, said Sue Gainor, national chair of Families for Russian and Ukrainian Adoption, a volunteer-led nonprofit that offers support and community.
Gainor, who adopted a son from Moscow in 2001, said there are between 600,000 and 800,000 orphans in Russia, with an additional 80,000 to 100,000 in hospitals awaiting placement in orphanages.

"When you slow adoptions, you affect a lot of children," she said. "There's lots of angst in the adoption community. The minute you see the picture of that prospective child, that kid is yours."

Being a parent, child advocates and members of the adoption community add, means helping a child adjust to change and work through challenges.

"This is just so sad because that kid had no chance whatsoever," said Larisa Mason, who directs a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, adoption agency and serves on the board of the National Council for Adoption. "A 7-year-old who changed his whole life within six months -- new language, new food, a new mother -- no question he would have issues. Even a dog would have issues."

In addition to hoping adoptions continue uninterrupted, many also want Hansen punished for her actions.

Natasha Shaginian-Needham is the founder and director of Happy Families International Center in Cold Spring, New York. The agency, established in 1992, helps orphans with special needs (including Valera), with adoptions being part of its work.

"The mother who finds somebody on the Internet, who sold his services for $200 in order to pick up and deliver [him] ... in Russia, demonstrates serious neglect and abandonment," she said. "There was a very high risk that the child could have been met by a pedophile or worse, a killer. The community in Russia is outraged by the fact that the mother may not be punished at all for her inhuman action."

Prospective adoptive mothers like Andrea Wright of Wake Forest, North Carolina, hope she, her husband, Kenneth, and the boy they want to adopt aren't punished because of Hansen's actions.

Leaving St. Petersburg, Russia, on Friday, Wright was overwhelmed with joy and anticipation. The 40-year-old fundraiser and her husband had just spent a week bonding with a little boy they are on track to soon call their own.

The hopeful first-time parents arrived armed with toys to engage little Andrei, who will turn 1 later this month. In awe and with hearts melting, they watched as the child teetered into the room, clasping the hands of an orphanage caregiver.

Of all the toys they brought him, stacking balls and cars included, his favorite item: Cheerios. Though he was a little reluctant at first, he warmed up during their stay. When they left him, he waved his arms to say goodbye.
In six to eight weeks, they have plans to return to Russia to appear in court, the next phase in their journey to become parents.

"We've been working on the process for close to a year. It's been one procedural thing after another. ... We are so prepared to be parents and have worked so hard to get to this point," she said. "We're hoping that since we've been to Russia once that we'll be allowed to continue. We're trying to go with a lot of faith and prayers at this point that it'll all work out."

http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/04/13/russian.adoption.families/index.html?hpt=C1

A Novel About Human Trafficking

This is an NPR book review on the novel, Purge, set in 1992 Russia and Eastern Europe.

Surviving Human Trafficking: A Noir Fairy Tale
by Oscar Villalon

In Koba the Dread, Martin Amis' concise history on Stalin's legacy of perversity, the British novelist makes the point that the enormity committed by the Soviets during (and before and just after) World War II somehow didn't get the deep traction in the consciousness of the West that the inhuman crimes of Nazi Germany did.

Sofi Oksanen's disturbing, riveting novel Purge partly operates in opposition to that fog of forgetfulness. Her book's story — an escaped Russian sex slave turns up out of nowhere, collapsing in front of the dilapidated house of an elderly woman in Estonia — is a jolt.

Set in 1992, only three years removed from the joyful optimism undammed by the demolition of the Berlin Wall, Purge burns through the mists to show how decades of debasement have twisted society in the former USSR into one characterized by crime and cruelty. Oksanen couches this larger theme within a tight, unconventional crime novel, one punctuated by dreadful silences, shameful revelations and repellent intimacies. By examining the toll of history on a close, personal level, Oksanen, an acclaimed Finnish playwright and novelist, makes the cost of mere survival (never mind the price of retaining one's dignity) sickeningly palpable.

Yet for all its darkness, Purge is an engrossing read.  Continue with review - http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125915533&ft=3&f=1025,1032,1036,1132

Reminder that the Vast Majority of Adoptions are Positive and Joyful!

An essay from NPR from an adoptive father:

Mercy On A Parent: Show Adoption's Happy Cases

by Eric Weiner

I've gotten very quick with the remote control these days. I can change channels or hit the mute button in a fraction of a second. You see, I don't want my 5-year-old daughter to hear the adoption news out there, because lately, it seems, it's all bad news. The Russian case, the American missionaries accused of sneaking children out of Haiti — these stories raise questions that I'm not prepared to answer. Not yet, at least.
My daughter knows she is adopted. My wife and I don't hide that fact, but nor do we dwell on it. It's just one more thing, we tell her, that makes her special. Once, we were at an ice cream parlor, and the clerk asked my daughter: "Where are you from, little girl?" "Kazakhstan," she replied proudly. I can still recall the shocked expression on the clerk's face.

Only now is my daughter beginning to understand that we don't look alike, she and I. Coursing through her veins is the blood of Genghis Khan and the Mongols. Coursing through my veins is the blood of the Jews of Eastern Europe. It doesn't matter, though. Love trumps genetics. Every time.
There's something mysterious and wonderful about the bond between an adoptive parent and child. For me, that bond gelled as soon as I saw her photo — sent by e-mail from the adoption agency. She had bright eyes and a huge bald head — "Buddha Baby," we called her. Normally I'm not one to believe in fate, but at that moment, I knew, just knew, she was destined to be my daughter.

Adoption is not what you think it is. It is not, as one well-meaning person told me, "an act of mercy." My wife and I did not adopt our daughter to "save" her or to demonstrate our innate goodness. We adopted her because we wanted a child and couldn't have one biologically. That's why we filled out endless reams of paperwork, underwent a background check, spent thousands of dollars we couldn't really afford.

Like our case, the vast majority of international adoptions end happily. Of course, you don't hear those stories. Good news is not news — which is a shame, really, because every time there's an adoption scandal, countries overseas get spooked. Sometimes, they suspend all adoptions, as Russia is reportedly considering now. When that happens, the main victims are the children sitting in orphanages, waiting for parents who may never arrive.

That's what nearly happened to us. At the time, there was a similar case involving a Russian child adopted by an American parent. This parent had allegedly beaten the child to death. It was a terrible story, and Kazakh officials — very much in the Russian orbit — were threatening to suspend all adoptions, including ours. My wife and I spent several tormented weeks holed up in an apartment in the Kazakh city of Almaty, wondering whether we would be allowed to bring our Buddha Baby home.

In the end, cooler heads prevailed and adoptions were allowed to continue. I hope that is what happens now. Meanwhile, I've figured out what I'll say the next time someone tells me that adopting my daughter was an "act of mercy." Yes, I'll reply, it was, and it is we — my wife and I — who are the recipients of that mercy.


Eric Weiner is a former reporter for NPR and author of The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World.  This story may be found at
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125906714&sc=fb&cc=fp

Russia Threatens to Halt Adoptions By Americans

U.S. to urge Russia to keep adoptions after boy's return


(CNN) -- Top officials from the U.S. State Department plan to travel to Moscow this week to push Russia to allow adoptions by U.S. families to continue.

The trip comes after a U.S. family sparked outrage by sending an adopted 7-year-old boy back to Russia alone. Officials in Moscow have threatened to halt all adoptions by U.S. families.

"We were certainly shocked, as was everybody, about the return of the child. We are hoping to work with the Russians to continue the adoptions of children," said Michael D. Kirby, principal deputy assistant for consular affairs.

"We have had over 50,000 children adopted from Russia. The vast majority are doing great here in the United States."

Families in the United States have adopted 14,079 children from Russia in the last five years, including 1,586 in 2009, according to the State Department.

Russia is the third most popular country for U.S. families adopting children internationally, behind China and Ethiopia.
The family that returned the boy said he showed violent and psychotic behavior -- and that officials in Russia had given no warning.
"I am sorry to say that for the safety of my family, friends and myself I no longer wish to parent this child," Torry Hansen wrote in a note in the child's backpack.

She added that Russian orphanage workers "lied to and misled" her about the boy, Artyem, who was renamed Justin Artyem when the family adopted him last year.

In a phone call with CNN, Hansen's mother, Nancy Hansen, said the boy "had a hit list of people he wanted to hurt." No. 1 on that list: his American mom.

The final straw, the adoptive grandmother said, came last week when the family caught him trying to start a fire in the home.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, in an interview with ABC News, called the boy's return a "monstrous" act.
Kirby, speaking to CNN's "American Morning," said, "We have to talk about how we can follow up after the children are adopted. First, are the parents properly screened in the process? Are the agencies that are screening them doing all that they could do to ensure that they are prepared to be new parents?"

He added U.S. officials also must work with Russians "to make sure that the children themselves are also fully understanding what is going to happen to them as they move to a new country in a strange place."

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/04/12/russia.adoption/index.html?hpt=T1

Children's HopeChest "Young Mother's Program"

For Mother's Day 2010, Children's HopeChest is selling beautiful, handmade, one-of-a-kind necklaces to raise funds for girls in their Young Mothers Program. Keep an eye out for the "Love Goes Around" necklace and their Breaking the Chain Mother's Day gift campaign.

About the Young Mothers Program: When orphans are released from the orphanage in their early teen years, they enter a critically vulnerable time. In the case of these women, they found themselves pregnant and alone. Still children themselves, they had nowhere to go. That's where HopeChest comes into the picture.

Learn more:  http://tomdavis.typepad.com/HopeChest-YoungMothers.pdf

Stop Sex Trafficking Now!

From Childrens'HopeChest:

As you read this letter there are over 2 million children forced into prostitution and sex slavery.
This can be prevented and we can do something about it. These girls need our help and there isn’t time to waste.
Right now, pimps and prostitution rings are targeting our precious, young girls. They wait for them to leave the protection of the orphanage, and then offer them a "job."
Many of the girls simply disappear: never heard from again by their friends. But sometimes you glimpse this horror.
Like the girl who was flung from the cab of a truck once her "client" was finished with her. She was paralyzed, never to walk again.

Or the young woman the police found in a ditch on the side of a busy road. Killed at the truck stop where she worked as a prostitute.

These were kids that could have been helped by our programs.

One of these stories is too many...2 million children is unfathomable. This is a direct result of evil having its way on the earth.
As Peter tells us, “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” I Peter 5:8
We can’t let him continue to destroy lives. You can stop this, and help reclaim a child's future.
HopeChest stops sex trafficking before it starts. In Russia, we are taking girls into residential living centers and community centers to actively protect them from the commercial sex trade. We identify girls early, while still in the orphanage.

Our staff form meaningful relationships to role model what successful living looks like. And when that girl leaves the orphanage, she knows exactly where to go for help--to HopeChest. She is not alone.
Amongst our girls, there is no sex trafficking. In fact, our transitional living homes have a 90%+ rate of helping girls find true independent life. This is the reality of God’s Kingdom in action.
Right now these girls need you. Please go to http://www.hopechestpartners.org/
 and click the GIVE button to make a gift today.

You can make a gift in honor of a special person this Christmas. Perhaps you will honor someone who mentored you as we are helping these young women?

Help us stop sex trafficking now by reaching more girls in Russia today and into 2010.
 

http://tomdavis.typepad.com/tom_daviss_blog/2009/12/urgent-stop-sex-trafficking-now.html

Adoption as Missional

A review of the book, Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families & Churches, by Russell Moore, the dean of the School of Theology and senior VP at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He tells his story, personal and theological, of adopting two Russian children.

http://blog.beliefnet.com/jesuscreed/2009/06/adoption-as-missional.html