Ranch becomes focus for Russian adoption outrage

AP via Yahoo ^ | 07/11/12 | MATT VOLZ

[DFG]

The Russian government officials arrived with a Moscow television crew in tow at the gates of a ranch for adopted children in remote northwestern Montana and demanded to be let inside.

Among them was Russian children rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov, the man who was calling Joyce Sterkel's Ranch For Kids Project a "trash can for unwanted children" on his website.

Whether it was a made-for-TV confrontation for viewers back home or a serious bid to gain entry, Sterkel kept the two dozen children inside and away from the gate. The Russians didn't try to enter the property, but Astakhov vowed to return and shut the ranch down.

As a bilateral adoption agreement between the U.S. and Russia wends its way through the ratification process, Sterkel is concerned that Astakhov will try to make good on the promise he made that day, June 28.

"This is a test case. This is to test the integrity of the bilateral agreement to see if they have the muscle to come onto American soil and push their way in," Sterkel said Tuesday. "I think they want to see if they really can come in and visit children without parental consent."

[DFG]

There are so many foreign adoptions here because the US adoption process is so expensive and they take forever.

While the kids are stuck in foster care, the state continues to "try" to put them back with their family. So you can have a child for many years that is legally not adoptable because the biological parents still have parental rights and can swoop in at any time and take the kid back.

[mom4melody]

“So you can have a child for many years that is legally not adoptable because the biological parents still have parental rights and can swoop in at any time and take the kid back.”

Yep, that’s why we adopted from China instead of locally.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

This is about as “hot potato” an issue as it gets.

To a great extent, in Common Law, children are effectively chattels of their parents or guardians. In past and perhaps still today, this means that parents (with money or insurance), who have children that displease them in any way can put their children in what are effectively private prisons until they turn 18 or the money runs out.

To get around any problem with this, the children are diagnosed by prison medical staff as mentally ill, and remain so until they are miraculously cured at age 18 or when the money runs out.

While incarcerated, children have no right to habeus corpus, nor even legal representation unless their parents agree to it. They may be kept in isolation, and only given minimal education, medical care, denied religious practice, etc., and can be forcibly drugged or force fed as needed.

What makes it even blurrier is that some of these children are even legitimately mentally ill, not just incorrigible or insolent. So the sane kids are confined with the insane ones.

As with any such incarceration, smuggled cigarettes, drugs, and unprotected sex are common. Perhaps forced abortion, if there is an unexpected pregnancy. No civil rights.

In most states there are perpetual brawls with their Child Protective Services: either they are too strict, taking children away from good parents; or they are too slack, leaving children with abusive parents. So they are always controversial, with an abundance of bad feeling.

But these private youth prisons can be much, much worse, and yet because mental health care is the issue, they are generally ignored by the public, and will vigorously fight to prevent the release of any information that would prove embarrassing or criminal on their part.

[AppyPappy]

Ranch for adopted kids? Is it a summer camp?

[silverleaf]

A US camera crew needs to follow Mr Pavel Astakhov back to some Russian orphanages and insist on being allowed in to film the kids and the conditions they live under - since sovereignty is no big deal to this Russian

I especially recommend they visit the Russian orphanages designated to handle special needs kids- mostly called “imbecile asylums” in Russia

and of course, Russians are lined up to adopt these “social undesirables” (not)

the good part of this US legislation- force the Russian govt to be more honest about the social and medical history of the children made available for foreign adoption. People should have the right to known if children come from bipolar/schizophrenic/alcoholic/drug abusing/child molesting birth families

Part of the adoption screening process ought to be spending time volunteering in a rehab facility with these kids

Force the adoption agencies to do a better job of screening people for parenthood of damaged children, it sure isn't sunshine and roses. Single parenthood of kids like this is almost a sure recipe for disaster, the Russians should stop it since America won't

[silverleaf]

Consider it an extensive private rehab program for kids damaged by fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS and the invisible FAE) and RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder)

Lets imagine the damage to a kid born to an alcoholic or drug abuser, dumped into a Russian hospital then a baby house

Left in a crib with virtually no human contact and no normal sensory stiumlation, visual, auditory tactile - then adopted as a cute litle bundle or an adorable toddler or child - who has NEVER developed a bond to trust or love another human being (but depending on their age, they sure can put on a good front of smiling and hugging “mama and papa” for their own survival- until the other feral instincts take over and they despise “mama and papa” who they can never trust)

these adorable children are taken to the US by unsuspecting parents who think love and good food can cure everything - the “Mother Teresa” syndrome especially among childless couples and women, and missionary types

This “ranch” is a rehab program and respite for parents who have tried everything but their child needs 24/7 care and therapy because they have or soon will destroy the family

Maybe eventually they will be able to come live in a normal family, but maybe, never

These are not parents who are abandoning the kids or disrupting their adoption, they are getting inpatient therapy for their kids

Read up on RAD and FAS, read what some parents live with to try to parent these kids

Then try it yourself for oh, a couple of years at least

Then judge

[Graybeard58]

“There are so many foreign adoptions here because the US adoption process is so expensive and they take forever.”

Neither expensive nor taking forever:

http://www.bchfs.com/

Web site of the “Illinois Baptist Children’s Home. Many states have Baptist Children’s Homes, just google, (your state)Baptist Children’s Home, to see if there’s one in your state.

You need not be Baptist to adopt and fees are on a sliding scale. Homosexual “families” need not apply, they will not adopt children to known homosexuals. They can do this because they do not accept any government funding, state or federal, they are dependent on churches and individuals supporting them.

[Spunky]

I saw a documentary on this. It is so sad what these children and adopted parents go through.

[netmilsmom]

What a fantastic site!!!! Thanks so much for posting it.

We would like to adopt. God had a different plan for us than the six kids we wanted. But the cost had always stopped us.

I’m going to show this to my husband.

Thanks again!

[Georgia Girl 2]

Somebody needs to ask Russia what they do with they orphaned kids at age 16. Answer: They give them a few bucks, put their backpacks on them and gently shove them out the door of the orphanage into the streets where over 40% of them end up in drugs and prostitution. Its horrible.

My brother in law and his wife have adopted 3 kids most recently a 14 year old as they just couldn’t bear the thought that this sweet,studious, smart kid would end up on the streets.

[jmacusa]

This kind of bs infuriates the piss out of me. Like Mexico, whose people are solely responsible for the crap hole they’ve made their country, they flee to America and then start loudly complaining how it’s all America’s fault Mexico is such a mess. Maybe the Russians should take a good look at the mess they’ve made of their country and come to terms about why it is so many Russians are unfit parents and giving up their kids. Maybe they’d be happier if their kids were being adopted by Mexicans? Russia is a modern country. They had a space program at one time for crying out loud. Russians are famous for doting on their kids.

[cunning_fish]

In fact by law they keep children until age 18 and provide them property to live in after leaving orphanges just to make them victims of crooked realtors most of the time. Often with assistance from corrupted orphanages’s stuff due to a complete lack of social interaction skills on side of these children.
Russian orphanage system is absolute flawed, a real dustbin, producing drug-addicts, gangsters and prostitutes.
Adoption, both domestic (which is extremely rare) or foreign often a single chance for kids to get socialized.
I find all of this nationalistic crap on how bad Americans in treating their adopted kids an extreme hypocrisy.

[cunning_fish]

They had decades of socialism breeding irresponsibility in their population. It couldn’t end unpunished. That same thing happens to America right now. Let’s see how good children of this era could be at parenting in near future.

[Georgia Girl 2]

As of last Oct when my brother in law and his wife adopted their last child from the Ukraine it was 16. At 16 they are on their own. But you are right compared to the Russian system the kids who get adopted and brought here have a good chance at life.

[silverleaf]

16? Depending on the orphanage the kids may run away or just disappear much younger.

We saw 10 yr olds standing outside our son’s orphanage smoking. We saw a girl of about 13 meeting her foreign “john” in the lobby of our hotel.

Our adoption facilitator “rescued” a 12 yr old she saw at the hotel and took her to a children’s home- no telling if she stayed

Some Russian orphanages pimp out the kids, westerners aren’t welcome to visit them. In Russia we met people adopting a kid from an orphanage in a region so polluted with radiation, they brought the kid to meet them, they wouldnt let them go to the orphanage

We met another couple who found out after medical consult that their darling baby girl referral had a potentally fatal kidney condition and decided to adopt her anyway and get her back to the US and surgery asap, and to stay in Russia with her and get her on meds and a special diet for the 2 months it was going to take for the adoption

I remember reading some some medical missionaries in Irkutsk desperately trying to find parents for a girl missing 3 limbs (congential) because she was to be sent to an imbecile asylum, the only facility for kids with any special needs

Watch this documentary if you have a strong stomach - the Children of Leningradsky
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2qf5q_the-children-of-leningradsky-1-of-2_people

Ya know, thats why hypocrites like this grandstanding anti-US, anti adoption Russian guy PISS ME OFF

But on the other hand, we met MANY kind very caring and concerned Russians who waanted to get the kids families and GET THEM OUT of a system and a society where they will never succeeed

fwiw
We lucked out. Our 2 adopted Russkis are now 14, they have issues but not unmanageable and thank GOD neither is RAD! They are dear good people

[Georgia Girl 2]

My brother in law and his wife found the Russian adoption laws to actually be quite strict. Which is a good thing. They adopted 2 children ages 2.5 and 5 at the same time from different orphanages. The orphanages were very open about the pasts of both kids. They are now very well adjusted normal American kids doing well in school and a bright future. They had some behavioral problems due to one being food deprived as a toddler and the other being thrown into a rough and tumble orphanage at age 3. The most recent child adopted at age 14 is a fairly well adjusted kid. We love all three and they are now just like any other American kids in middle school and high school. Maybe they were lucky but they also were careful about what adoption agency they used here in the states.