Vladimir Putin signs ban on Americans adopting Russian children
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on Friday that bans Americans from adopting Russian children and imposes other sanctions in retaliation for a new U.S. human rights law that he says is poisoning relations.
President Barack Obama meets with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at his dacha outside Moscow, Russia 2009 Pete Souza photo
The new law, which has also ignited outrage among Russian liberals and child rights’ advocates, takes effect on January 1.
The law will lead to a sharp drop in the reputation of the Kremlin and of Putin personally abroad, and signal a new phase in relations between the United States and Russia,” said Lilia Shevtsova, an expert on Putin with the Carnegie Moscow Centre.
“It is only the first harbinger of a chill.”
Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the Magnitsky Act – the U.S. bill which prompted the new Russian law – had “seriously undermined” the “reset”, the moniker for the effort U.S. President Barack Obama launched early in his first term to improve relations between the former Cold War foes.
Fifty-two children whose adoptions by American parents were underway will now remain in Russia, the Interfax news agency cited Russia’s child rights commissioner, Pavel Astakhov, as saying.
The legislation, whose text was issued by the Kremlin, will also outlaw some non-governmental organizations that receive U.S. funding and impose a visa ban and asset freeze on Americans accused of violating the rights of Russians abroad.
Putin said U.S. authorities routinely let Americans suspected of violence toward Russian adoptees go unpunished — a clear reference to Dima Yakovlev, a Russian toddler for whom the adoption bill is named. The child was adopted by Americans and then died in 2008 after his father left him in a car in broiling heat for hours. The father was found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
“I am incredibly saddened and outraged that Russia is using orphaned children who desperately need homes, especially the 46 who have already been paired with their adoptive American families, as political pawns,” Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said in a statement.
“I’m deeply concerned by President Putin’s announcement that he will sign the ban on U.S. adoptions of Russian orphans, and urge the Obama administration to forcefully condemn this action,” Florida Senator Marco Rubio said in a statement. “Over the last decade, tens of thousands of loving American couples have adopted Russian orphans, providing unconditional love, support and a quality of life otherwise unimaginable in Russia’s crowded orphanages.
“In addition to helping thousands of families, these international adoptions have brought our two nations’ people closer together and served as a symbol of our growing friendship. Now, President Putin’s adoption ban will not just deprive thousands of Russian orphans of a better life, but will cast further doubt on his commitment to human rights,” Rubio continued. “The Obama administration should make clear that we will not tolerate orphaned children being treated as political pawns.”
[…] programs at American World Adoption Ryan Hanlon told the Christian Post that part of the issue is Russia’s ban on international adoption. But there are other factors contributing to the problem as well. […]
I JUST FINISHED READING A Global Dispatch article [DATED, 30 JUNE 2013] ON Russia’s President Vladimir Putin SIGNING INTO LAW A BILL WHICH PROHIBITS gays FROM SPREADING THEIR PROPAGANDA TO CHILDREN. NOW, I READ THIS ARTICLE – DATED, 28 DECEMBER 2012.
SO, LOGIC DICTATES A PRIMARY REASON [if not the sole reason] WHY President Putin BANNED AMERICANS FROM ADOPTING RUSSIAN CHILDREN IS BECAUSE HE WANTS TO STOP American gays FROM ADOPTING RUSSIAN CHILDREN. [Caucasian gays adopt colored children from “third-world” countries; but, these Caucasian gays would love to adopt white babies. So, it seems Russia was an obvious supply-source for obtaining unwanted white babies].
NOW THAT SAME-SEX MARRIAGE IS LEGAL IN SOME AREAS, HOMOSEXUAL ADOPTION OF CHILDREN WILL INCREASE. President Putin DID THE RIGHT THING BY PROTECTING RUSSIAN CHILDREN FROM A LIFE OF deviance.
CHRISTOPHER ALLEN HORTON