MOSCOW, October 27 (RIA Novosti) — Efforts by a US couple to vacate the adoption of two Russian-born children due to the children's alleged mental disorders are despicable and deceitful, Russia's Children's Rights Commissioner Pavel Astakhov said Monday.
"They are now covering their inconsistency by blaming the poor children, who have already been placed in a psychiatric clinic. This is despicable," Astakhov said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 channel.
According to Astakhov, the children are being labeled and are imprisoned in mental institutions. "This is deceit," he said.
The children's rights commissioner stated that "US foreign adoption has a closed nature" and the whole adoption system in the United States is corrupt. In addition, too many children from Russia die at the hands of their US adoptive parents, he said.
Last week, the New York Post reported that a New York couple had asked a court to annul the adoption of their two Russian-born children due to the children's alleged mental problems which, according to the parents, were not initially disclosed by the adoption agency.
In 2013, Russia approved legislation dubbed the Dima Yakovlev law, which imposed a ban on the adoption of Russian children by US nationals. The law is named after a Russian toddler who died of heatstroke in 2008 after his American adoptive father left him in an overheated car for hours. Russian officials have stated that at least 19 Russian-born children have died at the hands of their US adoptive parents since 1999.
