Lawmakers in Moscow have sent President Vladimir Putin a bill banning Americans from adopting Russian children, which he could sign as early as this week.
PHOTOS: Jourdan Dunn In The October Issue Of Vogue Russia
Though numbers have dropped within recent years, Russia remains the third most popular country for U.S. adoption after China and Ethiopia.
In a move that has angered U.S. citizens, Russia’s upper house of parliament unanimously approved the drafted adoption bill in retaliation to U.S. legislation put into action earlier this month, which aimed to punish alleged Russian human-rights violators.
Not surprisingly, the ban has generated a national outcry from U.S. officials, adoption advocates, and even Russia’s political and cultural elite, according to CNN:
Many argue the bill amounts to playing politics with the fates of tens of thousands of children who live in the country’s orphanages with little hope of being adopted by Russians. Senior Russian government ministers have come out against the bill, a rarity for Kremlin initiatives.
DETAILS: Tragic! Man Accidentally Kills Adopted Son Mistaking Him For An Armed Robber
Putin has not yet said if he will sign the bill, but it is speculated that he feels strongly about it. The ban is actually a part of a broader draft from Russia as a response to the U.S. Magnitsky Act for Sergei Magnitsky, a hedge-fund lawyer who died in a Russian prison in 2009 after exposing alleged fraud and corruption among officials. The law imposes visa bans and asset freezes on Russian officials and their families suspected to have been involved in the Magnitsky case or other human-rights violations.
“There is terrible irony in the fact that America’s decision to speak out against human-rights violations may cause the Russian government to deny many thousands of Russian orphans the possibility to grow up in loving, adoptive families,” said Chuck Johnson, president and CEO of National Council For Adoption.
Ironic indeed. Is Russia being a little petty about this all?
SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
