This guest blog post was written by Vincent Loera.
Steve Gutterman (March 2, 2013) of Reuters wrote an article depicting a Russian rally in support of the U.S. ban on adopting Russian children. The rally was also a call for Kris Shatto a Russian adoptee to be returned to Russia after his brother, Max, had died in the care of his Texan parents. Like the rally, the article uses the tragedy of Max to explain the relationship of the U.S. and Russia. Russia banned U.S. adopted of its orphans after the US called Syria, a Russian ally, human rights violators due to the treatment of rebel prisoners. Russia’s response to the U.S. was that of a ‘kettle calling the teapot; black.’ Russia and more appropriately, Putin, argued that the U.S. has violated all kinds of human rights to their adoptive children. Russian adoptees are more at risk than other international adoptive children and the article cites 20 deaths in the last 20 years. The article attempts to dispel myths that the U.S. treats adoptees poorly and that the Russians are using the Shatto brothers as a tool to install nationalism.
While the article does a great job explaining the rally, a sense of Russian nationalism, and the hypocrisy of Putin decrying that the U.S. treats Russian orphan adoptees poorly; it fails to look at the real losers- those who have been victimized by poor human rights. Syrian freedom fighters, Russian orphans, and those in the U.S. foster care system, Russian or otherwise, are all equal losers in this abusive triangle. Yes, Putin’s decision to ban was a sassy and inappropriate and uses vulnerable children as pawns; but it doesn’t make it any less true. It is a terrible thing to be an orphan anywhere in the world and a Russian orphanage or U.S. foster care system is the last place an orphan ought to be in.
Some may want to argue; “oh yes the U.S. system has its faults but it is nowhere as bad as a Russian orphanage.” I wouldn’t bore this person with statistics or facts or sad stories of children being lost in the American system. Instead, I would respond by telling this person that that minimizes the issue and does nothing to fix the victimization here in our own borders. How disgusting it is to A) use another orphan’s suffering as a benchmark for how well we treat our own orphans and B) have a smug sense of superiority over this orphan’s suffering. To be honest, if I had to pick a loser to be; I would rather be a Syrian freedom fighter. At least then I would feel connected to something, a family, a culture, a cause, a sense of being a part of something bigger than myself. Whereas an orphan in Russia or in the U.S. is waiting; simply waiting.
