Orphanages brim, but Russia thwarts foreign adoption

This week, the last of 89 foreign-based adoption agencies failed to get reaccreditation.

from the April 19, 2007 edition

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Kremlin-sponsored efforts to increase adoptions by Russian families are beginning to work, some experts say. For the past two years the numbers of domestic adoptions have exceeded foreign ones, though both combined remain a tiny sliver of the total number of Russian orphans. "The system for adoption in Russia is still very far from ideal," says Valeriya Pavlova, head of the Russian office of Kidsave International, which works with orphans. "Obviously it would be better if children could stay in their native land, but the key thing should be to get them into a family, whether in Russia or America, where they can have a chance for happiness."

The Deede family adopted two Russian children about a decade ago, using the Happy Families agency, and say they encountered few problems then. "We went to Russia, passed all the tests, filled out the paperwork, and had our children within nine months," says Mrs. Deede.

One of those children, Marina, now a young adult, says she can't understand what's going on in her former homeland. "There've been thousands of children who've been happily adopted; why would they stop that over a few cases where something bad happened?" she says. "If they were going to stop everything, why would they wave a child in front of us? We fell in love with Vova, and now they're saying we can't have him?"

[Editor's note: The original version had a different headline.]

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