Putin says he will sign anti-us adoptions bill

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By CNN Staff Updated GMT HKT December 29, Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what's happening in the world as it unfolds. JUST WATCHED Why anti-U. Story highlights Russian lawmaker pushes for exception for children with disabilities Measure bans the adoption of Russian children by U. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law on Friday a measure that bans the adoption the Russian children by U. The action could affect hundreds of U.

Putin says he will sign anti-US adoptions bill - WCPO Cincinnati, OH

Americans adopted close to 1, Russian children last year, according to U. Russia's lower house approves bill to ban U.

Though the number has been dropping in recent years, Russia remains the third-most-popular country -- after China and Ethiopia -- for U. State Department said it "deeply regrets" the law announced by the Kremlin. The announcement was a wrenching one for Aaron and Jenny Moyer, coming in an adoption process that was well under way for them to become parents of a Russian orphan named Vitali.

They carry photographs of them and Vitali together during their visits to Russia.

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Jenny Moyer says she knows there is an orphan crisis in Russia, especially for children with special needs. Vitali has Down syndrome. The fact that he has the genetic condition associated with mental retardation may prove to be a help. A Russian parliamentarian, Robert Shlegel, was to submit an amendment that would allow U.

Putin to sign anti-US adoptions bill - POLITICO

The couple, who have two biological children and one adopted American child, said they are relying on their faith to see them through the uncertainty. The Russian measure also bars any political activities by nongovernmental organizations receiving funding from the United States, if such activities could affect Russian interests, Russia's semiofficial RIA-Novosti news agency said. And it imposes sanctions against U.

The law envisions the drafting of a list of U. Russian lawmakers eye adoption ban to U. The vote this week in the Federation Council, Russia's upper house, was unanimous, but Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov criticized the bill ahead of its signing. Lawmakers in the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, adopted it last week.

The move is widely seen as retaliation for a law that U. President Barack Obama signed on December That bill, called the Magnitsky Act, imposes U.

The Magnitsky Act is named for Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who uncovered the largest tax fraud in the country's history in the form of rebates claimed by government officials who stole money from the state. Magnitsky died in after a year in a Moscow detention center, apparently beaten to death.

The Russian bill's implementation nullifies a recent agreement between the United States and Russia in which the countries agreed to additional safeguards to protect children and parties involved in inter-country adoptions. Backers of the Russian bill said American adoptive parents have been abusive, citing 19 deaths of adopted Russian children since the s. In , an American woman sparked outrage after she sent her adopted son back to Russia alone on a one-way flight, saying the boy, then 7, had violent episodes that made her family fear for its safety.

Konstantin Dolgov, the Russian Foreign Ministry's special representative for human rights, said Wednesday on Twitter that Russians were "well aware of, and have pointed out more than once, the inadequate protection of adopted Russian children in the U.

Convention on the Rights of the Child. According to the U.

Children's Fund, the United States is one of two nations -- the other being Somalia -- that has not ratified the convention. But the United States has signed the convention, thereby signaling its intent to ratify. Anthony Lake, executive director of UNICEF, touted the importance of "inter-country adoption. He asked that Russia let children's "best interests" guide the "design and development of all efforts to protect children. Groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch had urged Russian lawmakers to reject the bill.

John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International's Europe and Central Asia program director, has said that "this bill is frankly a childish response to the Magnitsky Act.

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