Lake Elsinore Mom Fights for Release of Child from Russian Orphanage

By Paul Young, City News Service:

A Lake Elsinore mother of four is marking a sad anniversary this month as the second year without her adopted daughter draws to a close, while the fight continues to free the child and thousands like her living in Russian orphanages.

“I’m holding onto hope that I’ll have her with me this time next year,” Katrina Morriss, co-founder of Parents United for Russian Orphans, told City News Service. “I feel like I have to keep fighting. I’m probably wishing for a miracle, but the alternative is, my little girl grows up in an institution.”

In December 2012, Morriss said she and her husband were denied access to then-7-year-old Natasha after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law an immediate ban prohibiting the adoption of Russian children by American families. Dozens of would-be adoptive parents in the United States were affected.

The stated purpose was to prevent Russian orphans from being placed in potentially abusive households. But according to published reports, the Kremlin’s act appeared to be payback for U.S. sanctions following the death of a lawyer who had uncovered wide-ranging financial corruption by Russian police and other officials, resulting in his arrest on reportedly trumped-up charges. He died in custody.

“The lives of children should not be about politics,” Morriss told CNS. “There are 100,000 kids available for adoption, living in Russian orphanages. They shouldn’t grow up that way. The ones like our Natasha have minimal chance of being adopted because of severe disabilities. So they’re left in these horrible conditions.”

Natasha, now 9, has Down syndrome. According to Morriss, she has been able to send gifts and pictures to the Moscow orphanage where the girl is kept, but otherwise has had no contact with her.

At the time Putin implemented the ban on Dec. 28, 2012, 300 special needs children had been matched with adoptive parents from the U.S., according to Parents United for Russian Orphans. Around 30 remain institutionalized.

According to Morriss, Russian authorities claim the other 270 children were provided homes by Russian citizens or citizens of the two countries exempt from the ban -- Italy and Spain.

Morriss and her husband Steve, along with 20 other American couples, filed a lawsuit in the European Court of Human Rights seeking to have the adoption ban invalidated.

“We have Russian attorneys working on the case, and they’re very passionate. They’re working more for the children than us,” Morriss said. “If the court rules in our favor, we don’t know that Russia will honor the ruling. But it’s worth a try.”

The first hearing is Jan. 15 in Strasbourg, France.

Putin cited the deaths of 20 Russian children who had been adopted by Americans as motivation for imposing the ban. Morriss pointed out that the most disturbing case involved a months-old infant left in a car for an entire day after her father went to work and forgot about her.

“No child should be abused or killed after coming to the U.S. The idea is to make things better for the kids,” Morriss said.

The stay-at-home mom noted that 60,000 Russian children have been adopted by U.S. citizens over the last 20 years.

“The chances of a child dying in a Russian orphanage are a lot higher,” she said. “The conditions have been well-documented. They’re extremely poor.”

Her group has lobbied Congress for help breaking down barriers, but the effort has yielded little.

“They’re kind of like, ‘Sorry, that’s the way it is,”’ she told CNS. “We can’t accept that. The people of this country and Russia should be outraged enough until something is done. We can’t leave these children behind.”

More information about Parents United for Russian Orphans can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/parentsunitedforrussianorphans .

(Image via Shutterstock)