80% of Russian orphaned children live in Russian adoptive families – lawmaker

File Photo of Russian Orphans with Mr. and Mrs. Dmitry Medvedev

ST. PETERSBURG. Jan 29 (Interfax) – Eighty percent of Russian orphaned children have been adopted in Russia, said Irina Sokolova, vice chairperson of the State Duma Committee for Family, Women’s and Children’s Affairs.

“Besides the anti-Magnitsky law, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on January 28 on the state policy of protecting orphaned and parentless children. There are about 650,000 such children in Russia, or one in each 40. Eighty percent of them are under the care of adoptive Russian families. More than 105,000 remain at orphanages,” Sokolova said at a roundtable conference in St. Petersburg.

“The scope of the problem is large of course. The decree has to do with hundreds of thousands of foster and adoptive parents, and those who want to adopt children, and also with child welfare services which have been given additional powers,” she said.

Foreign nationals adopted 3,400 children in 2011, including 900 adopted by Americans, 800 by Italians and another 800 by Spanish nationals. Russian families adopted 7,400 children. Of the 336 children adopted by foreigners in St. Petersburg, 27 have disabilities. St. Petersburg residents adopted 215 children.

The number of orphanages decreased by 24% between 2006 and 2011 (from 1,770 to 1,344), and the number of children living in them shrank by 35% from 117,000 to 79,400.

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