“He is ours – just the way he is”

Confessions of a French Adoptive Parent

“There are now almost a million abandoned children in Russia, some of them were forcibly taken away from their mothers. Why does the country need this million? Are your leaders hoping to plug holes in demographics with them? — confession of a foreign adoptive parent

United Russia's proposal to ban Americans from adopting Russian orphans has caused a flurry of criticism in society. More than him, four ministers of Medvedev's cabinet - Lavrov, Livanov, Abyzov, Golodets - have already come out against him. Elena Mizulina, head of the Duma Committee on Family, Women and Children, also criticized her colleagues. Presidential Commissioner for Human Rights Vladimir Lukin called the bill "monstrous, child trafficking, which dishonors the country." Nevertheless, the deputies intend to expand the geography of the Dima Yakovlev Law. It will affect all countries that will join the Magnitsky Law, United Russia deputy Mikhail Starshinov sternly warned on December 18. Prime Minister Medvedev has kept silent for now. The president is also silent. Meanwhile, the vote in the second reading is scheduled for Wednesday, and the final adoption of the law is scheduled for December 21.

---

The number of foreign adoptive parents many times exceeds the number of Russians who want to adopt orphans. What foreigners who decide to take a Russian child from an orphanage into their family have to face today, a French citizen told The New Times. Fearing that the Russian authorities might take away his adopted child, the author preferred to remain anonymous.

Long haul

The adoption process begins in the country of residence - long before the adoptive parents travel to the country in which they decide to adopt a child. Special social services under a microscope begin to study you, your family, social, financial situation, psychological state, and most importantly, motivation. The procedure lasts for a year. During this time, psychologists will have a conversation with you more than once, including with your children, if you have them, and separately from their parents. Three times you will have to communicate in great detail with social workers who will pull all the information out of you to the drop and to the tenth knee. Of course, some documents need to be collected, but they are clearly marked and their collection is not a serious problem. At the end of the year, the commission decides whether to allow you to adopt or not. And it doesn't matter if you adopt in your own country or abroad. Quite often there are failures. And only after that, the adoptive parents can go to the country where they decided to adopt the child.

The process is different in different countries. But never and nowhere is easy. I will talk about Russia and France. How do ordinary Frenchmen act?

Having probed all the sites on the Internet, you decide on a city in Russia. In Russia, this area is well developed, there is complete information about the procedure, a bank for children, contacts with intermediaries. Having chosen an intermediary, the adoptive parents go to the place and transfer the documents to the intermediary, draw up a contract with him. For foreigners, most of whom do not speak Russian, this intermediary is the only thread connecting them with administrative bodies. Therefore, intermediaries take advantage of the situation and are not shy about setting a fee. There are, of course, among them honest and decent people. Although it is very difficult to maintain decency in this area - you will rather throw this occupation to hell. We managed in both cases without intermediaries. We ourselves speak two languages ​​and our feet to run through the authorities.

Our daughter Girl was born to a very young mother and has already become the third child, and she didn’t need her, just as her grandparents didn’t need her, just as her older brother and sister turned out to be unnecessary. Other Russian citizens do not need it either.

Before being introduced to foreign adoptive parents, the child must be refused twice by Russian adoptive parents. Still, the sores that she acquired at birth are of little use to anyone, and even people will not get enough of their troubles.

She was born a year and a half ago. And then we appeared - some kind of uncle and aunt, and even a boy with them. We stroked her, kissed her, shook her with some kind of rattles, rocked and carried her in our arms, talked to her, sang. Then we taught her to walk.

And then we left. And they came back a couple of months later. Again they brought their favorite toys, again they sang that sad song. And the girl thought: “So, they will now appear all the time? So she's special now? She has something that other ringmates don't have! You can even get a little proud about it!”

Another six months passed and we returned again. We dressed our future daughter in new clothes and went out with her not only to the street, but also outside the fence of the house where she lived.

A new life began for her. Who are we?

My wife is French, but speaks excellent Russian, I am Russian by origin. Four years ago we took our first son away from Russia. We are a happy full-fledged Russian-French family, as evidenced by regular reports that foreign adoptive parents are required to send every year to the relevant authorities in Russia within a strict time frame. A year after the adoption of the first child, we had a desire to adopt another. We were told in the Children's Home: "Goodbye!" After passing all the necessary checks in the French authorities, which lasted a year, we submitted an application to the Ministry of Social Protection of the Population to provide the child for adoption. After that, they waited another year.

We would like to note that for us the first meeting with a child is comparable to his birth. We do not choose his appearance, nor his character, nor his illnesses. He is ours, just the way he is.

Mountain of papers

Then we are separated again - and we can only see him for short hours during our visits. Foreigners are not offered healthy children. And they never give you a choice. Here there is a child - agree or come back. After the first meeting and the signing of consent, foreigners return to their place and begin collecting documents for the court. You should have seen how many pieces of paper you need! FORTY documents, half of which are definitely not related to the problem of adoption and maintenance of the child. Other documents are simply not issued by official bodies in France, others are strictly confidential.

Russian courts arrange bureaucratic chaos in relation to adoptive parents, referring to the need to check the seriousness of our intentions. And it can still be tolerated. But it turns out that after the delivery of all these documents, the translation of which has 250 pages, your torment is just beginning. You are given a definition in which they state that you have an incorrect translation of all documents and ask for new confirmations for many documents. Roughly speaking, you have every chance to reach the president of your country and ask him for proof that he is really the president.

money for children

For foreigners, the first installment is 8 thousand euros. This is only a fee for translators, intermediaries and notaries. At the first court, as a rule, your adoption is denied and you have to go to court again. And to pay money - from 4 thousand euros. Nobody sets a limit. In addition, regular gifts in the form of cognacs, wines and chocolates are expected from you. And once it got to the point that an adoptive mother from Barcelona (a single woman) was asked for a soccer ball autographed by the Barcelona team, ostensibly for a judge. Imagine this woman's panic! Nevertheless, not wanting to leave "her" son, she went to the minister and there she was arranged to meet with the team and sign autographs.

It is far from being millionaires who adopt children, sometimes the entire family budget is spent on adoption, as judges are aware of up to a centime about the budget of adoptive parents. How many tears have been shed by these well-fed foreigners on the harsh Russian soil, when they simply do not understand what is required of them, why they are being tortured, and most importantly, they are torturing children who got a chance to find parents!

And after all this nightmare, one has to hear from many official, public figures in Russia: they say that adoption abroad is now in fashion, and it is especially fashionable to adopt in Russia, because the children there are pretty and smart (sorry, kids from Vietnam, Colombia and Haiti are not differ in mental abilities? Does this remind you of anything?).

Does Russia no longer have such concepts as mercy, compassion and complicity? Do you really think that well-fed foreigners are mad with fat, exposing themselves to ruin and humiliation, for the sake of the happiness of the child and family? I will never forget one German woman who left the office of the Ministry of Social Protection: the mediators explain something to her, and she begins to sob softly. One of our familiar French adoptive parents literally fainted in court when the judge said that the photos of the children's room provided to them are outdated, the child has grown up, you bought a new crib, and in the photo you still have the first crib, you should correct it .

A million abandoned

There are almost a million abandoned children in Russia now, some of them have been forcibly taken from their mothers. Why does the country need this million? Do the leaders of the country hope to plug holes in demographics with them? This is stupid, only a small part of these children live up to 25 years old. More than half of them are already alcoholics, drug addicts and prostitutes at the age of 16. One friend, a former pupil of an orphanage, told me that only three people from their class were not in prison. So the question of demographics is nonsense. Is there business then? Now this is closer to the truth. Foreigners adopt in Russia about 6-10 thousand children a year. However, every year this number is decreasing. Foreigners more often refuse to fight windmills and pay a lot of money that does not go to the remaining children, but simply fills the pockets of those who traffic in children. If we exclude from the “cost” of an adopted child the costs of translators and notaries, there will be 8-10 thousand euros for each child. I think you understand that no one will allow intermediaries to receive such money on their own. Given that this is illegal money (according to the legislation of the Russian Federation, intermediary, commercial activities in the adoption of children are prohibited), intermediaries, I think, are obliged to unfasten at least half of the fee to someone higher.

I fully admit that some money gets to the judges. It is thanks to them that the courts are delayed for years, and the amount of payment by foreigners increases accordingly. But I'm afraid to assume that the judges here are just a link in the chain. And the numbers go even higher. When you consider this, you will understand that the sale of children can be put next to the trade in oil, weapons and drugs. But children still remain many hundreds of thousands in shelters.

When we were here in France going through a commission with social workers and psychologists for adoption, we were told a story. The Russian family adopted the boy, but after some time, apparently, they got tired of the toy, they expelled the boy to a psychiatric hospital, and to difficult children. Thank God, the doctor realized that he did not belong there and returned him to the orphanage. Then the boy was given to another family, where he was simply beaten and used as a labor force. In the end, he ended up here in France. Only now he has a really upset psyche. And the new parents, painstakingly making incredible efforts, are trying to warm him up. He could not be left alone for a second - a terrible hysteria began.

Mikhail Barshchevsky once spoke very precisely on television: until there is at least a hint of a queue of Russian adoptive parents, it is impossible to close foreign adoption.