New Agreement Continues US-Russian International Adoptions

“Trust, but verify” was the motto for US-Russian nuclear disarmament talks during the Reagan administration. It could now be used to describe US-Russian relationships when it comes to international adoption.

Last week, the United States and Russia settled a yearlong dispute over adoption with a new agreement that tightens government oversight of adoption process. The dispute began last year Tennessee woman sent her adopted child unescorted on a plane back to Russian with a note stating the 7-year-old had “psychological problems.”

Russia threatened to end adoptions to the US after the incident.  While it never went that far, the rate of adoptions to the US, which has slowed by 80 percent since 2004, grew noticeably slower. Meanwhile, tensions escalated as Russia claimed that as many as 17 children adopted from Russia died of abuse and neglect in the United States since 1991.

Over that time, around 60,000 US-Russian adoptions were completed. Ten percent of all international adoptions to the United States are from Russia.

Under the new agreement, American couples looking to adopt from Russia must now complete psychological testing to assure that they will be fit parents. Likewise, agencies in Russia will do more thorough studies of the child’s history and medical background. The adoption agencies and the Russian government will use that information to make better matches between parent and child.

The new agreement also ends so-called independent or private adoptions, those arranged between lawyers and families. The US government must now certify adoption agencies working in Russia. The Russian government will also approve those agencies.

Once a child has been placed with an American family, adoption agencies will complete long-term home studies to assure the child’s welfare. How long the studies must take place and how many reports will be required hasn’t been specified. While the US and Russian governments could monitor the reports, the governments won’t be directly involved overseeing adoptive families.

According to some estimates, there are as many as 200,000 children in Russian orphanages looking for homes. The US State Department would not speculate on whether this new agreement would increase or decrease US-Russian adoptions.