US vs Russia: Adoption Pawns

Russian President signed a bill to ban U.S. families from adopting Russian children on December 28th, 2012. This political move comes  after the U.S. President Barack Obama signed Magnitsky Act into law. This act was put into place to punish the Russian officials that are allegedly responsible for the death of a lawyer by the name of Sergei Magnitsky. Mr. Magnitsky was a lawyer that was arrested for an  investigation he was doing on Russian officials. He spent a few days short of a year in a Moscow prison before he died from unknown circumstances. There are stories of him being sick and not receiving proper medical attention and also stories of torture and murder. Although these things are unclear there is a consistent story of foul play. The U.S.  in return created the Act in his honor to "blacklist" the officials that were suspected of being involved. Which in turn lead to the the Russians to ban U.S. families from adopting. Yet neither of these articles are my focus article this week. These stories lead to the article entitled "Russia concerned over adopted boy's cause of death" which I read this week.

A 3-year old Russian child was living in Texas with his adoptive parents and died on January 21st from what looks like self-inflicted trauma to the abdomen and not murder as Russia's children's rights commissioner announced via twitter last week. Which then gave the Russian government reason to be concerned and a case to back up their claims that American adopted children are mistreated. They seem to focus on the fact that 19 Russian children have died due to maltreatment by their adoptive american parents. This child's accidental death has made him the poster child for Russia's ban against american adoption. When in actuality it seems as though this adoption ban is nothing more than a pawn in a game of a political mudslinging.

This is a social issue because this preventing families from finalizing their adoptions that were well underway. Children who were preparing to move to America with a loving family are now back to searching for a family. This political agenda was taken without thoughts of the ramifications that citizens would have to suffer from.  


http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/02/us/russian-adoption-death/index.html
http://abcnews.go.com/US/adopted-russian-boys-death-ruled-accident-texas/story?id=18631668
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-12-06/world/35649594_1_magnitsky-law-magnitsky-act-law-accountability-act