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State Duma may allow adoption of Russian children only to countries that signed agreement

The authors of the draft bill believe the amendments would establish additional legal guarantees of security, life and health, the rights of Russian children on their adoption by foreign nationals

MOSCOW, November 25. /ITAR-TASS/. A draft bill that stipulates to allow adopting Russian children only in countries that have signed an agreement with Russia (except CIS members) has been introduced in the State Duma on Monday. The authors of the amendments are a group of deputies mostly from the United Russia party headed by Yevgeny Fyodorov.

“The adoption of children by foreign citizens or stateless persons shall be allowed only in cases when the Russian Federation has ratified the agreement on cooperation in adoption of children with a foreign state (except CIS member states), and it is not possible to transfer these children to grow up in a family of Russian citizens permanently residing in the territory of the Russian Federation or to adopt them by relatives regardless of nationality or place of residence of the relatives,” the draft law writes.

According to the document, children can be transferred to the adoption of Russian citizens permanently residing abroad or foreigners who are not relatives of the children, after 6 months from the date of receipt of the information on such children in the federal data bank on children without parental care.

The authors believe the amendments would "establish additional legal guarantees of security, life and health, the rights of Russian children on their adoption by foreign nationals." Moreover, they expect the initiative "will contribute to strengthening the process of concluding bilateral agreements and the creation of international legal regulatory framework for the adoption of children."

At present, Russia is cooperating on international adoptions with only two countries — France and Italy, on the basis of bilateral agreements, which provide strict control over the lives of Russian children adopted abroad.