If there is one silver lining from Russia’s recent ban on U.S. adoptions, it might be for Ukraine’s abandoned and orphaned children. Some are hoping that U.S.-based adoption agencies, which specialize in Russian adoptions, might look to Ukraine now – unless politics interfere.
Russian children accounted for about 10 percent of all adoptions by U.S. families abroad. Last year, 748 Russian children found new homes in the U.S. But this year, Russia banned American citizens from adopting its orphaned children by passing the Dima Yakovlev law, named after a Russian boy who died soon after adoption in America.
The law, however, was not a humanitarian response – it was a political reaction to the Magnitsky bill passed by the U.S. Congress last year, which introduced targeted sanctions against top Russian officials involved in human rights violations.
Ukraine, on the other hand, is inching towards easing adoptions by foreigners. Earlier this year, the president asked parliament to ratify the 1993 Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Inter-country Adoption. If ratified, the convention will help bring the process in-line with international practice.
Over half of internationally adopted children in Ukraine find homes in America. Last year, 803 Ukrainian children were adopted by foreigners, while 2,016 found homes in Ukraine.
The numbers for both types of adoptions are falling: in comparison, just two years ago, the number of children adopted by foreigners was 1,202, while Ukrainians adopted 2,247 orphans.
Mykola Slavov, director of the Chernihivsky orphanage in Zaporizhya oblast, says his orphanage has been around for more than five decades. It is home to children with disabilities, so it is overlooked by Ukrainian adoptive parents who shy away from taking children with special needs.
Last year the institute saw its first ever adoption after two boys were taken in by American families. They were two of 144 children with special needs adopted by foreigners in the country, according to the Ministry for Social Policy. In comparison, Ukrainians only adopted eight children with special needs.
One of the boys who found a home in the U.S. is Oleksiy Makarenko. He is 10, and spent his entire life in an orphanage because he was abandoned in a maternity home. He has both mental and physical disorders, including deformity in his arms and legs.
His new name is Logan, given to him by his American parents Julie and Robert Vilardo. He now has frequent medical examinations and is expecting surgery to fix his spinal problems. If Logan wasn’t adopted, he would be transferred to a state mental institutions once he turned 18, and would stay there forever.
Julie Vilardo believes that Ukrainian parents abandon their special needs children because it’s very hard to take care of them in Ukraine, with no good conditions for handicapped people.
Eight-year-old Olexander Kolesnik was the other boy from Chernihivsky orphanage adopted by a U.S. family in 2012. When he moved to the U.S., he was diagnosed with parasites that Ukrainian doctors overlooked.
“In the orphanage Sasha was very skinny, even though we don’t have problems with food. I’m happy to see photos of him looking much better now,” says Slavov. “His case shows that we shouldn’t forbid international adoption. It would be like taking away chance for a better life from children like Sasha.”
The director’s fears of an adoption ban stem from a number of recent political moves that came from the Svoboda party this year, which won 37 parliamentary seats in October.
Just weeks after Russia’s ban on U.S. adoptions, Svoboda’s leader Oleh Tiahnybok called for the introduction of a similar ban in Ukraine. “With a severe demographic crisis, we can’t just give out our gene pool to foreigners,” Tiahnybok said on Jan. 19.
On Jan. 30 two other Svoboda parliamentary members registered a draft law banning gay couples from adopting children – a move that will not affect adoptions because gay marriages are not legal in Ukraine.
However, some worry this is an indication of things to come. Ruslan Kolbasa, head of the family department in the Social Policy Ministry, says any bans on foreign adoptions would be an “untimely decision.”
Kolbasa said Ukrainians already have advantages guaranteed by law over foreigners in adoption: foreigners cannot adopt children under five, unless they have disabilities. Also, the child must be placed on the national adoption list for a year before becoming eligible for foreign adoption.
Once a foreign family gets through all the procedures, meets the child and gets his approval, adoption can still be blocked by a Ukrainian family in court.
Albert Pavlov, head of the Happy Child foundation in Zaporizhya, an agency that helped in the adoption process of the two Chernihivsky orphanage boys last year, praises foreign adoptions in Ukraine as educational.
“Seeing foreign families adopting children with special needs may serve as a good example for Ukrainian adoptive parents,” he says.
Kyiv Post staff writer Olga Rudenko can be reached at [email protected]
