Alexander D'Jamoos grew up in a Russian orphanage. Last summer, he climbed Africa’s highest peak, Mt. Kilimanjaro.
(Eric Michael Johnson / courtesy Alexander D'Jamoos)
The global conversation on human rights has become a fight over children in Russia.
Earlier this month, Congress passed the Sergei Magnitsky Human Rights act, legislation that aims to hold Russian officials accountable for human rights violations in U.S. Courts. The passage of that law this month has produced a counterstrike in Russia. Now Russian president Vladimir Putin says he will sign into a law a bill that would ban the American adoptions of Russian children.
What are the concerns – both legitimate and not – that led to this proposed ban? Is it a human rights ban? Or is it political? And if it’s signed into law, what will happen to Russia’s waiting children?
Alexander D'Jamoos was born in Penza, Russia and grew up in an orphanage for children with disabilities. At age 16, he was adopted by an American family and moved from Russia to Texas. Now, he works actively to help other Russian children with disabilities get adopted. David Smolin is Director of the Center for Children, Law and Ethics at Samford University in Birmingham Alabama; a law professor at Cumberland Law School; and the father of two children, both adopted from India.
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Comments [5]
For those who might insist:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1503248
# 9
Donations are identified:
Red Cap, White Cap, Yellow Cap, Brown Cap, Black Cap.
Connie Rice - Tavis Smiley (How we'll know we've arrived -
they'll do away with the caps)
White Cap gets used the most.
Domestically, african american, latino, native american adoptions lag.
Internationally, they lag.
Apparently maternal instincts are VERY selective.
Not so dirty, not so little secret.
Putin is the Grinch who stole Scrooge's Realizations.
Perhaps I missed it, but I heard not a word about Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) which is common among foreign adoptions. That little guy who was returned to Russia by the adoptive mother from Smyrna, TN had RAD written all over his face. We work with RAD kids in our office. It's a challenging condition, but one that can be improved with certain methodologies, e.g., auditory training and neurofeedback. Orphanage conditions in China have improved which has reduced the incidence of adoptees with RAD from there. Russia and East European countries seem to have fallen behind.
Adoptions from foreign nations should not be allowed as long as there is one, single American child unadopted. Who is paying for the healthcare of these damaged children? Who is paying for healthcare of damaged American children?
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