A. Mudrats / ITAR-TASS

The main thing is not actions, but words. The European Court of Human Rights asked the Russian government to report on the fate of orphans who were not given to the Americans because of the ban on adoption (see the article “Strasbourg asked about orphans”, Vedomosti, 26.11.2013). In response, the chairman of the Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin demanded that the United States investigate violations of the rights of 26 Russian children adopted in the past by Americans, and the State Duma is going to consider new restrictions on foreign adoptions.

There seems to be nothing to answer on the merits: the Foreign Ministry's Commissioner for Human Rights, Konstantin Dolgov, admitted that there is no precise data on children deprived of their families by the will of deputies. "I don't have statistics now, but there are quite a decent number of them (children adopted by Russians - Vedomosti)," the diplomat said. In early November, Rosbalt, citing the St. Petersburg Committee on Social Policy, reported that of the 33 St. Petersburg orphans whom the Americans wanted to adopt at the time of the ban, only seven were placed (in foster care or under guardianship), one of whom was adopted by the British.

The state's activities in arranging for children in difficult situations remain contradictory: it removes children to state-run shelters, and then gives a small part of them to other families. The number of lawsuits for deprivation of parental rights decreased from 34,250 in the first half of 2009 to 24,397 in the first half of 2013. The number of adoption lawsuits over the same period decreased from 9,742 to 7,311 (data from the judicial department of the Supreme Court). The loud talk of officials about orphans being allowed to remain in their homeland, where they would be gladly adopted, was just empty talk.

It would seem that it is possible and necessary to stimulate the interest of foreigners in Russian children, which has declined in recent years. Instead, Russian bureaucrats are politicizing the problem, trying to present foreign adoption as part of hostile activity, and the adoptive parents themselves as murderers and sadists. Substantive discussion of important social, political and economic problems is being replaced by propaganda.

On Monday, a bill was introduced to the Duma to ban the adoption of Russian children by citizens of states with which Russia has not signed the relevant bilateral agreements. It is worth recalling that such an agreement with the US was in effect at the time of the ban and, according to the letter of the document, should be in effect for another year after its termination, i.e., even now.

From the editor: Children's rhetoric