Russian MPs promise easier adoption
Published 09 April, 2008, 05:03
Russian MPs are considering ways of making it easier to adopt children, so more families can take orphans and abandoned children. Complex legal procedures currently put off many prospective adopters.
“If we really want to have Russian children taken from institutions to family care, all over Russia there must be a professional service created which works in this direction, which help. In practice there are millions of people who'd like to take a child,” believes Boris Altshuller, children's rights expert.
Nevertheless, an adoptive father Shahmurad Fazailov believes that people who are not ready to go through bureaucratic difficulties are definitely not ready to raise children.
“It’s not impossible to fulfill the process. What is difficult is finding your child. Choosing is the hardest bit,” Shahmurad says.
Shahmurad and his wife Guli felt Amir and Alin were the boys for them. The new brothers were destined for a life in a state-run orphanage.
Only 10 per cent of children raised in such places go on to lead a normal life. 80 per cent of orphans and abandoned children either end up in prison or succumb to drugs or alcohol, and a further 10 per cent commit suicide.
Moved by these statistics, Marianna Nestratova also sought to adopt but was deemed unfit as she’s unmarried with an average salary.
“The officials I dealt with dragged my adoption case on for more than a year. By the time I got a certificate it turned out that the documents I had collected before were no longer valid. And I was told that I would never be given a child because I wore a jacket instead of a fur-coat,” said Marianna Nestratova, adoptive mother.
But eventually she did gain victory over the bureaucracy and is now the proud mother of two.
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