MOSCOW. Feb 11 (Interfax) - Russia's Foreign Ministry insisted on Saturday on a temporary ban on adoptions of Russian children by Americans because of an "unceasing chain of crimes in the United States against adopted Russian children."
It would be "appropriate" to suspend such adoptions until the entry into force of a Russian-U.S. Agreement Regarding Cooperation in Adoption of Children, signed on July 13, 2011, the ministry said in a statement.
"It would only be possible to resume this process when mechanisms of control and defense of the rights and interests of children that are prescribed by this Agreement are activated. We also believe that it is necessary to consider making changes to the Russian Family Code in order to introduce stricter criteria for foreign adopters," it said.
In the same statement, the ministry lashed out against an "unjustifiably mild sentence" for Theresa McNulty, an American who "brutalized" her adopted daughter from Russia, Dasha.
The sentence, passed by a court in Pennsylvania on February 3 is "deeply outrageous," the ministry said.
"This latest in a series of instances of violence in the United States against a Russian child, an instance reported by the State Department three years after the crime was committed, and the subsequent judicial verdict that failed to reflect the gravity of what had been perpetrated raise serious questions about the ability of American authorities to effectively protect the rights and best interests of adopted children from Russia," the ministry said.
"As the Russian Embassy in Washington has been able to find out, it was as long ago as on February 23, 2009, that three-year-old Dasha was admitted to the hospital with second-degree burns covering 10% of her body and multiple scars and bruises on her head. A criminal investigation established that McNulty had regularly beaten and tortured her. However, though the facts of violence were confirmed in court and the adoptive mother never showed any remorse for what she had perpetrated, she was ultimately sentenced to 23 months of imprisonment with the possibility of being released after the first eight months. However, Pennsylvanian legislation prescribes between five and 10 years' imprisonment for similar crimes," the ministry said.
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MOSCOW. Feb 11 (Interfax) - Russia's Foreign Ministry insisted on Saturday on a temporary ban on adoptions of Russian children by Americans because of an "unceasing chain of crimes in the United States against adopted Russian children."
It would be "appropriate" to suspend such adoptions until the entry into force of a Russian-U.S. Agreement Regarding Cooperation in Adoption of Children, signed on July 13, 2011, the ministry said in a statement.
"It would only be possible to resume this process when mechanisms of control and defense of the rights and interests of children that are prescribed by this Agreement are activated. We also believe that it is necessary to consider making changes to the Russian Family Code in order to introduce stricter criteria for foreign adopters," it said.
In the same statement, the ministry lashed out against an "unjustifiably mild sentence" for Theresa McNulty, an American who "brutalized" her adopted daughter from Russia, Dasha.
The sentence, passed by a court in Pennsylvania on February 3 is "deeply outrageous," the ministry said.
"This latest in a series of instances of violence in the United States against a Russian child, an instance reported by the State Department three years after the crime was committed, and the subsequent judicial verdict that failed to reflect the gravity of what had been perpetrated raise serious questions about the ability of American authorities to effectively protect the rights and best interests of adopted children from Russia," the ministry said.
"As the Russian Embassy in Washington has been able to find out, it was as long ago as on February 23, 2009, that three-year-old Dasha was admitted to the hospital with second-degree burns covering 10% of her body and multiple scars and bruises on her head. A criminal investigation established that McNulty had regularly beaten and tortured her. However, though the facts of violence were confirmed in court and the adoptive mother never showed any remorse for what she had perpetrated, she was ultimately sentenced to 23 months of imprisonment with the possibility of being released after the first eight months. However, Pennsylvanian legislation prescribes between five and 10 years' imprisonment for similar crimes," the ministry said.