Russian boy sent back by American adoptive mother

Artyem Saveliev, a Russian boy, was sent back to Moscow by his American adoptive mother, but on his way to Russia he stopped a few days at an orphanage.

Larry Crain, an attorney of the World Association for Children and Parents, said that he will be escorted by the National Council for Adoption to his home land where they will meet adoption authorities. 8 years old Artyem Saveliev will be evaluated by the delegation because his adoptive parents claim that he might have some mental problems, and further information will be provided to a circuit court in Tennessee. World Association for Children and Parents has coordinated the adoption from April, when Artyem, then 7, was sent in the United States on a Trans Atlantic flight from the United States to Moscow. The boy had previously been adopted by an American family in Tennessee, which has now decided to send him back home and hired a driver to take the boy from the Moscow airport to the Russian Ministry of Education. Torry Hansen of Shelbyville, Tennessee, the adoptive mother, sent together with Artyem a letter for the Russian authorities which says that she can not parent the boy anymore because of his violent tendencies, that he was mentally unstable, and that she was mislead about the boy’s mental condition when she filed for adoption with the Russian agency. She no longer wishes to be the adoptive parent of this child because she fears for the safety of her family and her friends and wants to cancel the adoption procedure by returning the boy back to Russia.

Larry Crain says that for now Hansen is still the legal guardian of the boy until the whole adoption procedure is cancelled and that he has information on a local teacher wanting to petition for becoming Artyem’s guardian, so she will probably represent him in court. The authorities were asked by the adoption agency to transfer the case to juvenile court. The case has been postponed now, although it has been first scheduled for the 12^th of July. This case has led to an international debate between America and Russia and the United States and Russian negotiators met several times to discuss an agreement regarding international adoptions between their two countries. Pavel Astakhov, the children’s rights commissioner from Moscow, declared that the Russian authorities plan to cut the number of the United States adoption agencies that are allowed to operate in Russia. Together with the United States officials, they plan to create a new Russian-American agency that will decide if the American families are suitable for adopting a Russian child and so the independent adoptions will be abolished. The new agreement will probably contain a section that will require sharing of the information both before and after the adoptions, so that the American families know exactly what child they are going to adopt, and on the other hand, the Russian authorities know what the child is doing and if he is treated right. Now, some of the American couples that adopt a Russian child get to see the details of a child’s medical and psychological condition only when the final adoption approval is received