INKED! Li'l Orphan Alexi stuck in Gulag

Heating up a rekindling Cold War at the expense of orphaned children is kind of a cuckoo move, but Russia is kind of a cuckoo place.

And Vladimir Putin is kind of a cuckoo guy.

We thought we had it uncomfortable with President Bush clearing brush on his Crawford, Texas, ranch or President Obama getting all sweaty on the basketball court.

Nope. Russia’s got an ex-KGB hardline president prone to parading around shirtless for paparazzi in displays of extreme manliness. He’s also been known to make decisions during his reign that seem to be minor to moderate attempts at stoking U.S.-Soviet relations of old, like the good old days of Reagan and Chernenko.


It’s certainly international political posturing that Putin would be set to sign a law that bars Americans from adopting even a fraction of the estimated 740,000 orphans stranded in Gulag. The Kremlin would like to extend this ban to other nations, but it’s meant for the United States.

It has to be. Of three-quarters of a million children without parents, only 18,000 Russians are now awaiting to adopt children. Meanwhile, some 60,000 Russian children have been adopted by United States families over the past 20 years.

The Kremlin cites worst-case scenarios of child exploitation and questionable for-profit adoption schemes in making this decision, yet the country doesn’t seem capable of dealing with its own orphan population.

Sadly there are nearly 50 Russian children and 50 American families currently waiting to be united. Putin’s signature will end all that.

There is a reason this is big news, and it’s twofold: we are seeing one of the world’s most popular pipelines of children closed to the U.S., where presumably Anglo parents most often go looking for light-skinned Anglo children. Let’s not kid ourselves; that’s the allure of Russia and Eastern European countries.

What’s more, this whole story points out some of the problems, or perceived problems, with adopting in the United States.

We get big chances to do big things in this country as a result of tragedy, or even as a result of something as seemingly minor as Russia’s adoption law. When it presents itself, take it.

Here is that opportunity to work on the adoption system at home; to make it easier, cheaper, faster and more convenient for the tens of thousands of childless men and women looking to make their lives complete, or those just wanting to do good by some child stuck in a soul-crushing system of foster homes, temporary custody, group homes and orphanages.

There is no reason why American children in this country should be wards of the state and statistics in the system, some destined (worst-case) for a life of institutionalization or misery.

Look, that might not be the reality for tens of thousands of kids who have grown up in foster care or in orphanages, but it’s significant enough that it’s a cause for concern, and streamlining the American adoption system might just give many of those children a fighting chance at a life they might not have had otherwise.

On any given year there may be 500,000 children in foster care, with more than 100,000 awaiting adoption and 50,000 successfully adopted each year. The big round numbers don’t even take into account the private agencies or orphanages or those agencies still run by religious organizations.

There are just way too many children out there without homes, and in the United States there is not enough being done to make the process any easier to get successful placement.

When it’s a better fit to seek out Little Orphan Alexi over Little Orphan Annie, something is truly wrong. Putin and Russia clamping down on that pipeline will be painful for some Americans, but hopefully it forces a hard evaluation of the American adoption practices.