Russia & Adoption

In russia there is little stigma associated with women as single mothers, however many Russian men have qualms about raising another man's children.

Women who make the choice to have children without a husband have a hard time getting married in the future. This belief causes adoption to be a rare practice.

Russia does have high numbers of adopting their children to other countries. With the poor economic atmosphere and the beliefs about not raising other men's children orphanages are full of orphaned and unwanted children.

There are over 600,000 abandoned children in Russia. But that doesn't mean there are 600,000 children legally available for adoption. By official Russian estimates, 90 percent of those children have parents who either can't afford to raise them or have abandoned them because of alcoholism or prostitution. If those parents keep minimal contact with their children.

Ironically an adoption agent from the United States can often arrange an adoption within a month while foster families in Russia who may wish to adopt often must spend 2 years on a waiting list.

This can lead to unfortunate situations however where children are sold to the highest bidder. Every year 6,000 Russian children are adopted to the United States and another 3,000-4,000 worldwide is a market with a minimum turnover of $100 million a year. Much of this money goes to Russian children traders. This problem is causing Russian prosecutes to actively pursue closing down adoption agencies that violate Russian adoption law and to attempt to shut down adoption of Russian children outside of Russia.