Russia Poised to Ban Adoption from United States: Measure Will Strand Many Children

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would sign a bill banning adoption of Russian children by citizens of the United States.

Russia's upper chamber of Parliament voted unanimously on Wednesday to pass the measure. The move is widely seen as retaliation against the United States for its censure of human rights abuses in Russia.

The lower chamber of Parliament passed the measure last week.

"I agree with hundreds of thousands of Russians who want children removed from political debate," tweeted Michael McFaul, the American ambassador to Russia. "Saddened by Federal Council vote today."

Since 1999, over 45,000 Russian children have been adopted by Americans. In 2011, 10,000 adoptions took place in Russia by nationals and foreigners; 3,400 were by foreigners, and 1,000 of those adoptions were by Americans.

Russia has more than 650,000 children living without parental supervision. Russian officials have identified 120,000 of them as eligible for adoption.

But those children seem to have become political pawns, along with the families trying to adopt them.

"I think any foreign adoption is bad for the country," said Pavel Astakhov, Russia's child rights commissioner, who was appointed by Putin and is a vocal supporter of the adoption ban.

"The children who have been chosen by foreign American parents -- we know of 46 children who were seen, whose paperwork was processed, who came in the sights of American agencies. They will not be able to go to America, to those who wanted to see them as their adopted children. There is no need to go out and make a tragedy out of it," he said.

Several high profile cases of abuse against Russian children by adoptive American parents prompted outcries from the Russian public in recent years. In the most notorious case, a woman from Tennessee put the 7-year-old she had adopted onto a one-way flight back to Russia alone, with only a note pinned to his shirt saying he was being returned.

The woman claimed the adoption agency had been untruthful about the boy's mental state.

But not all Russians -- in or out of the government -- support the ban.

"Adoption when needed is for the good of the child, not the good of the country," said Sergei Parkhomenko, a respected journalist.