26/7 Tass 36
MOSCOW, July 26 (Itar-Tass) —— Foreign adoptive parents will start paying soon the alimony to Russian children, which the latter abandoned, Russian Children’s Ombudsman Pavel Astakhov said in an interview with the Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily published on Tuesday.
Commenting on the Russian-US children’s adoption agreement, Astakhov also noted that Russia requested the United States to provide the information about all agencies, which are in charge of international children’s adoption, in order to receive the data about each Russian child adopted by US citizens.
“We lacked the information about each child taken away from Russia over massive violations made in international adoption of our orphans in the last two years. Therefore, we sent a note of the Foreign Ministry to the US to find all agencies, which are in charge of international adoption, as each US state has such an agency,” Astakhov said.
Already under the bilateral agreement (the agreement entered into force in the US right since its signing date) each US children’s adoption agency will receive a request for information to report how many children from Russia were adopted in this concrete state in the last two decades and how they live in US families, the ombudsman elaborated.
“If they do this work even within a year, we will gather the information about all our children. So, we will have an opportunity to follow the fate of each child not reaching the full age,” Astakhov noted. “The documents about our orphans, who were adopted by foreigners, are frequently destroyed some time later, though they should be kept for 75 years,” he noted.
Astakhov also noted that “the bilateral children’s adoption agreement for the first time in our relations with the US envisages an opportunity to find any relevant court verdicts valid in the signatory countries.” “For instance, a Russian court verdict that determines the child’s place of residence, adoption and alimony issues will be in effect in the US. And certainly in the opposite situation,” he specified.
“Thousands of Russian orphans were brought to the US for the last 18 years. We do not even know exact figures. Official statistical reports say about 60,000 children, but I believe that this figure can be doubled for sure in fact,” Astakhov said earlier.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed a bilateral agreement for children’s adoption cooperation between Russia and the United States in Washington on July 13.