MOSCOW, November 26 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s top investigator has sent an official request to the US Attorney General for an investigation into recently reported violations of the rights of Russian-born children adopted by American families.
The chief of Russia’s powerful Investigative Committee urged US Attorney General Eric Holder to look into 26 cases where children adopted from Russia were reportedly exchanged via the Internet by their American families and abused. The incidents were unveiled by Reuters and NBS television in their September investigative report on the underground market for adopted children in the US, the law enforcement body said Tuesday.
The statement said that the adoptees in question include Anna Barnes (Anna Faizzulina, born 1994), Inga Whatcott (Inga Kurasova, born 1985), Dmitri Stewart and 23 other Russian children mentioned in the report.
Bastrykin also sent copies of documents showing Russian investigators have opened preliminary inquiries in connection with the report about Russians allegedly mistreated and abused while in the US.
More than 60,000 children from Russia had been adopted by Americans since the early 1990’s before last year, when the Russian authorities introduced a controversial ban on all adoptions by Americans, citing numerous cases of death and abuse among the adoptees.
Moscow has also complained that the US system makes it virtually impossible for them to check on the treatment of children after adoption and probe suspected abuses.
More claims of Russian orphans being abused by their US parents have surfaced since the ban was enacted in January.
