Senior MP Admits Adopted Children’s Deaths Almost Never Probed In Russia

(RIA Novosti – Moscow, February 21, 2013) Up to 300 adopted children die in Russia every year but practically no-one has faced criminal prosecution over these deaths, head of the State Duma Committee on Affairs of Family, Women and Children Yelena Mizulina (representing A Just Russia party) said on Thursday (21 February).

“According to the figures available to the committee, up to 300 children handed over to be brought up in Russian families die in Russia every year. Over 60 per cent of these deaths in families are the deaths of children handed over for uncompensated care. The number of criminal cases launched over the deaths of children handed over to families is very small,” Mizulina told an expanded meeting of the State Duma Committee on Affairs of Family, Women and Children. Thus she said that one criminal case apiece was launched in 2009 and 2011, while in 2010 there were none at all.

“We tried to find out what the causes of death were, but no-one monitored this; it may have been diseases or some other causes, but one should not be left in the dark,” the committee head said.

In view of this, a decision was taken to set up in the State Duma an interdepartmental working group to monitor the investigations and court hearings into the deaths of children handed over for adoption to both Russian and foreign families.

(BBCM note: Russia banned adoption by US citizens at the end of 2012. The fact that 20 Russian children adopted in the USA had been killed in recent years was given as one of the main reasons for the ban. On 19 February, the Russian State Duma observed a minute’s silence after the US adoptive mother was blamed by Russian officials for the death of another three-year-old from Russia.)