The Forgotten Children of Russia

In the past few decades, many countries in the Western world have taken strides to protect the welfare of their youngest and most vulnerable citizens. But not all nations have followed suit. In particular, Russia’s corrupt adoption system has led to heavy scrutiny over its failure to fulfill even the most fundamental charters of protecting human rights. Currently, international human rights obligations include ensuring that children are not separated from their parents against their will and that children are protected from all forms of violence and neglect. Yet, countless investigations, interviews, and firsthand accounts from young victims of Russia’s poorly run adoption system reveal an alarming failure in the country’s ability to fulfill its responsibilities.

Russia’s orphanage crisis became apparent to the rest of the world after a viral video released in 2013. It showed two boys being whipped by a caretaker in an orphanage specializing in developmental disorders. Soon enough, a barrage of reports about pedophilia, sex trafficking, and severe emotional and physical abuse made it apparent that few of Russia’s 500,000 orphans were getting the care they needed. The long-term effects of such mistreatment are equally devastating; estimates from The Moscow Times concluded that 50 to 95 percent of all children raised in Russian orphanages end up committing suicide or becoming drug addicts.

Pinpointing the sole cause of Russia’s inadequate child support system is difficult. Yet, the lack of punishment for crimes committed against children undoubtedly allows for the problem to fester. In the city of Orenburg, 26 children were reported missing. Yet, only one criminal case was opened by police. Perm’s police department did not open a single case in connection with any of its own 27 missing children. Child abuse seldom gets the same degree of attention in Russia that it does in the U.S. While child sex offenders and abusive parents will find themselves with lengthy prison sentences in the U.S., they will rarely be imprisoned for committing the same crimes in Russia.

President Vladimir Putin’s stance on the issue makes the problem even more apparent. The Duma—Russia’s legislative body—passed a series of sanctions against the U.S. in 2013 under the Dima Yakovlev Act, which banned the adoption of Russian children by American parents. Duma Deputy Svetlana Goryacheva justified the legislation by saying that “60,000 children have been taken to the U.S. from Russia. And if even one-tenth of these orphans were used for organ transplants or sexual pleasure, there will remain 50,000 who can be recruited for war against Russia.” According to The Moscow Times, Russian children adopted by U.S. parents “do not go to heaven,” Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin said. If the government’s defense of its ineffective and broken orphanage system is to point to conspiracy theories, serious reform has little chance of being passed.

It’s not just the officials in charge of the orphanages. Many traditional and archaic stigmas against adoption persist in Russia. Parents of children with various disorders are often encouraged by doctors to give them up for adoption, allowing for parents to “try again.” Adding to this phenomena is the fact that there is no conscious effort to include disabled individuals in society, leading many parents to give up their children in fear of the isolation that parenting a disabled child would bring. In this fashion, children in the orphanage system are labeled as the equivalent of “damaged goods,” and adoption is discouraged as a whole.

Better resource management and increased publicity for children in need of adoption would go a long way to improving the adoption system. The country’s long-standing stigma against adoption, which is one rooted in outdated beliefs and traditions, must be abandoned. A serious crackdown on child abuse and crime must occur, since the normalization of child abuse is one of the biggest reasons why the orphanage system is so corrupt. It is also essential for Russia to not let international tensions affect its domestic agencies. Opening up adoption to parents from the U.S. would relieve the system of much of the pressure weighing down on it and catalyze reform. By taking these steps, the forgotten children of Russia will finally have a chance at a real childhood.