Posted on 04/11/2010 12:46:22 AM PDT by dbehsman
Russia has threatened to suspend all child adoptions by U.S. families after a seven-year-old boy adopted by an American woman was sent alone on a one-way flight back to Moscow with a note saying he was violent and had severe psychological problems.
The boy, Artem Saveliev, was put on a plane by his adopted grandmother, Nancy Hansen of Shelbyville.
In a case that has caused outrage at the highest levels, Torry Ann Hansen packed off Artem with a note to Moscow officials saying 'I no longer wish to parent this child'.
The single mother even paid an associate to take the boy straight to the ministry of education on his arrival at Moscow airport.
Seven months later - and a week before Artem's eighth birthday - she decided she had had enough because of his 'violent and psychopathic' behaviour. HOW WAS HE ALLOWED TO TRAVEL ALONE?
Artem, just seven years old, travelled from Tennessee to Washington, and from Washington to Moscow, apparently unaccompanied.
United Airlines refused to discuss the case but stressed that its rules on unaccompanied minors were strictly adhered to.
However these rules state that children aged seven 'may not travel on connecting flights'.
The airline said its 'unaccompanied minor service is available to ensure that your child is boarded onto the aircraft, introduced to the flight attendant, chaperoned during connections and turned over to the appropriate person upon arrival at their final destination.'
Having bought a ticket and put the child on the plane, it seems Hansen found a Russian tour guide on the internet who agreed to meet the child at the airport.
This man, called Artur, passed him to the authorities in central Moscow. Hansen agreed to pay Artur $200 for meeting the child, said officials.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Not to mention child endangerment. I wouldn't put a rat on a Russian plane.
Go ahead Russia keep all the troublemaker kids for yourself. See if we care.
......and, from what I heard....she changed his name when he got here. A 7 year old (I think). New country. New “family”. New name. This was all so wrong...
“I wouldn’t put a rat on a Russian plane.”
He flew United Airlines as an unaccompanied minor. That’s when the customer pays for the crew to take care of a child traveling alone.
Shouldn’t American kids be the ones adopted in America?
There are too many American kids who need homes, I wish the Russians and every other country would cease sell, er, sending their kids here for adoption.
And yes, foreign agencies HAVE been known to dump severely ill or deranged children on American adoptive parents!
When eventually confronted their response is just “You rich Americans can afford the special care, so we have done nothing wrong”.
What is wrong with so many adoptive parents that they have to go to another country to adopt?
If they cannot qualify to adopt American kids, why are they allowed to adopt foreign nationals and import them to the U.S.
Just another form of human trafficking to me, time for it to cease!
The U.S. should outlaw all foreign adoptions.
I don’t think there is a much of a pool of U.S. kids awaiting to be adopted. Most parents try to hold onto parental rights (especially given that kids can actually represent net positive income if they are diagnosed for SSDI (think Ritalin) - also the other benefits). You got dads who won’t step up for support but also refuse to sign away parental rights. The kids go into foster care with many wonderful foster parents who cannot adopt the children.
Also you have resistance to cross racial adoptions (can’t raise an African American as white - whatever that means).
Yes they should BUT- Giving the trouble my brother-in-law had trying to adopt when they found they could not have children themselves they tried to adopt here in the state,s but because of so many restrictions,fee's waiting period,restrictions and government intrusion into their lives they ended up adopting from Asia a beautiful pair of Girls both who are now college grads and a joy in their lives for the past 20 years they have been with them. The government makes it so hard to adopt that many go overseas which is a shame with so many here but people don't want to wait years and years.
As always, I take the cynical view. Let's say you have a single woman who gives birth and wants to give up her child for adoption, as she cannot take care of the child. Even if she is fully cooperative, it is far too easy for either her or the biological father to literally walk into any courtroom in the USA to challenge the adoption. The end result is a legal nightmare for the adoptive parents.
With a foreign adoption, the adoptive parents are far less likely to see the birth parents in court.
Perhap unlike others in this post I have seen unruly mentally challenged kids who parents can do nothing with.
She sent a problem back to Russia that United States penal authorities will now never have to deal with.
She sent a problem back to Russia that United States penal authorities will now never have to deal with.
***
I heard this story on WABC radio last night, and even the leftist WABC reported that the kid had been very destructive from the time he first got here.
I'm pretty sure from your comment that you've never been involved with adoptions. With domestic adoptions, folks set themselves up for extortion and future heartbreak. Thinking folks should steer clear of them.
“She sent a problem back to Russia that United States penal authorities will now never have to deal with.”
And she’s still alive.
From the replies to my earlier post two things are clear.
1. The American adoption process is in need of severe reform, thus clearing away the excuse for importing foreign children.
This should be the correct conservative approach, not ducking the issue and going overseas to avoid it.
2. Everyone here assumes a lot.
I have far more experience with the “Foster Care” system than anyone should have to endure.
I spent several years as a ward of that feculent system, I met abusive ex-cop case workers and “Fosters” who were truly only into it for the money.
Many of the “Fosters” already had children of their own, who were the source of lies that got me labeled as a “Problem Child”, and so subjected to continual threats from fosters and case workers.
What goes on in the “Children’s Shelter” would make a true horror novel, too disquieting for any normal person to enjoy.
I would have escaped that situation much sooner had some of my relatives simply stayed out of it, or had the judges involved actually have given a damn about the consequences of what they were doing.
So yes, I do know that foster care and adoption can be a nightmare.
I met many children who wished for a permanent stable home, and would have been glad to be adopted.
I was eventually allowed to return home, too many American children do not escape the system until they are eighteen, or successfully run away.
Foster care is NOT a healthy environment, take a look at the stats on how many become criminals or emotionally damaged.
Adoption is not perfect, but would be far better than continued bouncing from home to home and institutions!
I don’t disagree with what you say about the current foster care system. Orphanages might well be an improvement, but we all know that there would be abuses in that system as well.
As far as the comments I’ve seen about the Russian system, kids that come out of the worst of the American foster system are no better off than the average Russian child out of a baby house.
It is unfortunate how low we have sunk as a society since the Roe v. Wade decision was handed down. Life in this country has been devalued to a point where a mother will abandon a 7-year-old child.
That’s if you believe the mother. The boy was never actually examined by a psychologist, for all we know he could have been perfectly normal and the mother just didn’t understand his sense of humor. I remember threatening to burn down the house too when I was about 7 and much worse, my parents knew I was just kidding. Likewise my parents made threats to me too like that they would send me in a box to Mexico, I knew they were just kidding. The kid is 7 ffs, it’s not like he was a 17 year old making these threats. This mother and grandmother, who probably had no exposure to Russian culture, probably expected him to act identically to American children, and when he didn’t, assumed there was something mentally wrong with him. I’m not saying this is the case, but it’s a possibility.
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