Russian Lawmakers Introduce Bill In Parliament Banning Adoption Of Children By 'Unfriendly Countries'

A bill was recently signed by Russian leader Vladimir Putin banning the adoption of Russian children by citizens of countries considered “unfriendly” by the Kremlin. Russian lawmakers introduced the bill on Monday along with a list of such countries that seems to have expanded amid the Ukraine invasion. The bill that was introduced to the lower house will allow a lift on the adoption ban should an unfriendly country desist from carrying out antagonistic actions against Russia.

According to Reuters, the list of countries currently includes the United States, the United Kingdom, and all European Union member nations such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand along with South Korea and Japan. With tensions still high over the invasion of Ukraine, the adoption ban has provoked much backlash from Kremlin critics who say that it was Russia who made orphans of children suffering from mental and physical difficulties.

"Sending our children to be raised in 'unfriendly countries' is a blow to the future of the nation." "For many years 'the collective West has disrupted the issues of good and evil, destroyed traditional family values," the document stated.

The adoption bill was published on the State Duma, the parliament's lower house website and was approved by both chambers of the Russian parliament that was signed into law by Putin himself. Should the bill be passed, it will expand the 2012 law, also known as the Dima Yakolev law. The law was named after a Russian child who perished from neglect after being adopted by a family in the US.

The law prohibits the adoption of Russian children by American families, a sort of punishment against Washington over its sanctions on Russian officials that were implicated in the 2009 death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky while he was in US jail custody.

Since its passing, the law has paved the drastic drop in the number of Russian children being adopted by American families. Prior to this, some 240 Russian children on record were adopted abroad in 2019– a comparably huge drop from 2012 which recorded 2,604 child adoptions, the state news agency TASS reported.