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Wednesday, January 9, 2013

The U.S. Senate Has Denounced the Russian Adoption Ban


The U.S. Senate has Denounced the Russian Adoption Ban

Interfax - 3 January 2013
by Интерфакс
translated by Phil
Click here for the original article in Russian

The U.S. Senate approved a resolution that denounces the ban on adoptions of Russian orphans by Americans.  They called on the Russian government to reconsider.

Moscow, January 3.  The U.S. Senate unanimously approved a resolution condemning the ban on the adoption of Russian orphans by Americans which came into affect on January 1, said the BBC.

The text of the resolution states that the Russian law, which was passed in response to the American's Magnitsky Bill, first and foremost hurts the orphaned children which the Senators say are being used as "pawns in a political game".

The U.S. senators called on the Russian government to reconsider the ban "on humanitarian grounds".  In their opinion cases of adoption should be dealt with using the system prior to the new law.

The resolution cited data from UNICEF saying that 740,000 children live without parental care in Russia.  While at the same time according to the Russian Ministry of Education and public information there are only 110,000 such children.

Even one of the authors of the resolution, Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, is the adopted father to a child from Russia.

Remember that the Russian Bill, which was signed into law on December 28, was adopted in response to the U.S.'s Magnitsky Bill.  This act imposes sanctions against certain Russian officials who are seen as responsible for the death in 2009 in the pretrial detention of Moscow lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.

The Anti-Magnitsky Law (or the Dima Yakovlev Bill) introduced the ban on adoptions of Russian children by Americans as well as the ban on nongovernmental organizations either led by Americans or with American funding working in Russia.

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