Parents Wait Out Russian Embargo

Adoption Likely to Go Through, Mother Says

A Bella Vista family believes they are among the last, if not the last, Americans who will get their adoptive child out before a Russian Federation embargo took hold.

“We have friends in Moscow who tell us this law will not affect the last six adoptions that were approved by the courts, and ours was approved by the courts,” said Kendra Skaggs of Bella Vista in a telephone interview Friday.

Polina Skaggs, age 5, had her adoption approved Christmas Eve. She’s living in a Moscow orphanage. She has spina bifida, a birth defect affecting her spinal cord. Polina requires use of a wheelchair. Skaggs is a special education teacher in Bentonville. Skaggs and her husband, Jason, along with son Carter have been to Russia to meet their new family member.

“We’re waiting to hear from our adoption agency, but we believe we’ll be going to get her on Jan. 29 and coming home Feb. 2,” Skaggs said.

“Don’t give up hope,” Skaggs advised adopting parents in a telephone interview about the new law. “This is creating as big a stir in Russia as it is over here. I’ve had 21,000 hits on my website about this, many from Russia.” The family’s website is penniesforaprincess.blogspot.com.

“The Russian government has done this before, and other governments have done this, to use as a political tool,” Skaggs said. “The Russian people are working on this, for what’s best for the kids.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the law Friday, banning Americans from adopting Russian children. At least 52 youngsters were in the final stages of having their adoptions approved, according to news accounts.

Bart Hester, a state senator-elect from Cave Springs, and his wife adopted a son, Nick, from Russia in 2008, he said in an interview. Nick has no physical handicap but Russian orphans who do receive much better medical treatment in the United States if they are able to come here, Hester said.

“There are good parents in the United Kingdom, Australia and other places who are willing to adopt,” Hester said. “The big difference is that Americans are far, far more likely to adopt a special needs child than families from any other country. Special needs kids are going to be the ones most likely to suffer from this.”

“Any foster child in the U.S. can get a cleft palate or a cleft lip fixed,” Hester said. “A child in an orphanage in Russia may not ever get that attended to.” Skaggs said Polina is getting basic medical treatment but no physical therapy for her condition.

“I feel for the parents who have gone to Russia, met their child and now don’t know if they will ever see them again,” Hester said. “This is a long process. It took us six months and that was quick by the standards of this process. You go over there and meet the child and have to have five separate visits. They don’t have to be on consecutive days, but there has to be five. You don’t get to leave and then say, ‘Well I didn’t know about this or that.’”

The process becomes an enormous emotional commitment, Hester said. “I’m not sure my wife and I would ever have gotten over it” if their adoption had been canceled, he said.

Putin signed the ban into law hours after a government official there was acquitted by a Moscow court in the death of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who was arrested after accusing officials of a $230 million tax fraud. Magnitsky died in jail in 2009. Magnitsky is the namesake of the “Magnitsky provision,” a clause in recent trade legislation signed by President Barack Obama on Dec. 14. The provision was authored by U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona. The provision sanctions alleged Russian human rights violators by withholding visas and freezing financial assets. The Russian government sees the provision as foreign meddling in Russian internal affairs.

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