Adoptions suspended after Russian boy is ‘sent back’

Russia has suspended the adoption of children by American families after a seven-year-old child was sent back to Moscow on his own with a note from his adoptive mother saying he was no longer wanted.
 
The case of Artem Saveliev, who was taken in by 34-year-old Torry Hansen from Tennessee, has caused outrage in Russia.
 
He was adopted from an orphanage in Vladivostock in September last year, but last week arrived back in the country, alone on an airplane, with a note from his adoptive mother claiming that he had "severe psychopathic issues" and stating: "I no longer wish to parent this child".
 
Artem, who had been renamed Justin in America, was driven to Washington DC by his adoptive grandmother and placed on a United Airlines plane to Moscow with a rucksack of toys and a note. The family paid a courier $200 to collect the boy from the airport in Moscow and drive him to the Education and Science Ministry.
 
Now Russia says no more children will be allowed to leave for America until the two countries have negotiated a formal agreement.
 
"Only such an agreement, which will contain effective tools for Russian and US officials to monitor the living conditions of adopted Russian children, will ensure that recent tragedies in the United States will not be repeated," said a Foreign Ministry spokesman during a televised briefing.
 
It is the second time this year that Americans adopting children from abroad have generated negative headlines. In the wake of January's earthquake, 10 US Baptists were arrested in Haiti trying to smuggle 33 children out of the country without permission.
 
There were also reports that would-be parents were pressurising the Haitian authorities into letting children go before all the checks and paperwork had been completed.
 
Adoptions by Americans were controversial in Russia even before the case of Artem came to light. As many as 15 Russian children have died in the US since 1996, although 60,000 have been taken into the country in the same period.
 
In 2006 an American woman was jailed for 25 years for beating to death her adopted child from Siberia, and in 2008 a 21-month-old child from Russia died of heatstroke when his American father left him in a car.
 
The case of Artem was described as the "last straw" by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
 
There has also been condemnation from American sources. The US Ambassador to Moscow, John Beyrle, said he was "deeply shocked" and "very angry" about the case. A team from the US State Department will travel to Russia next week to try and thrash out an agreement over adoptions. ·