Unwanted adopted boy sent back to Russia

Sky News

"A seven-year-old Russian boy who was adopted by an American woman has been sent home on his own with a note saying he was no longer wanted.

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Unwanted Adopted Boy Sent Back To Russia

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5:45pm UK, Friday April 09, 2010

David Williams, Sky News Online
A seven-year-old Russian boy who was adopted by an American woman has been sent home on his own with a note saying he was no longer wanted.

Young Artem Savelyev arrived at Moscow airport with the typed note from his adoptive mother which said he was being abandoned after only six months in her care.

Torry-Ann Hansen had admitted to having made a mistake and suggested the boy should be re-housed.

"I no longer wish to parent this child," the unmarried 27-year-old nurse from Tennessee wrote, requesting his adoption be annulled.

She accused the boy's Siberian orphanage of misleading her about Artem's behavioural problems.

Hansen had placed sweets, biscuits and colouring pens in the child's rucksack before checking him onto the 10-hour flight as an unaccompanied minor, reportedly telling him he was going on an "excursion" to Moscow.

Russia media has reacted with horror to the case and foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called for all adoptions of the country's children by US citizens to be frozen.

He said the suspension must be upheld until Russia and the US conclude an agreement on terms "specifying responsibilities" by the host family.

Artem is an only-child, whose only known relative - his birth mother - was relieved of her motherhood rights in 2008.

He was picked up at the airport on Thursday by a Russian man who took him to the city's education ministry, where the youngster was left.

The man told officials he had been offered $200 (approximately £130) over the internet by Hansen to perform the service.

Artem has since been taken to hospital, where an examination revealed no signs of violent treatment.

But he reportedly told officials he was sometimes "dragged by his hair" by Hansen.

The boy will be kept in for a week before being transferred to an orphanage, either at the foreign ministry or in his home town in the far eastern Primoriye region.

The regional court had sanctioned his adoption in autumn 2009, a year after he was separated from his birth mother.

Coincidentally, the story of his abandonment came on a day American-Russian relations were strengthened in Prague.

US President Barack Obama and Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev put their signatures on a historic nuclear arms reduction treaty."

Russian president's fury over 'monstrous' rejection of boy, 7, by American adoptive mother

12th April 2010

The treatment of a young Russian boy rejected by his American adoptive mother has been described as a 'monstrous deed' by Russia's president.

Dmitry Medvedev said he was 'alarmed' by the case of sevenyearold Artem Saveliev, which has threatened to cause a diplomatic row with the U.S.

Artem was sent back to Moscow alone by his adoptive mother Torry Hansen with a note saying she no longer wanted him because of his violent behaviour.

Hansen, 26, said Artem had severe psychological issues that were never mentioned when she adopted him in September from an orphanage in Vladivostok.

Mr Medvedev said Artem 'fell into a very bad family'.

His comments were made to the Good Morning America breakfast show and extracts of the interview were released today.

Medvedev said: 'It is a monstrous deed on the part of his adoptive parents, to take the kid and virtually throw him out with the airplane in the opposite direction and to say, "I'm sorry I could not cope with it, take everything back" is not only immoral but also against the law.'

Meanwhile, friends and family of Hansen, a nurse, have defended her decision to remove the boy from her home in Shelbyville, Tennessee.

Her mother Nancy claimed he had a list of problems that included threatening to burn down the house and spitting and screaming at his adoptive mother if he did not get his way.

Family members alleged the final straw came when Artem, who was given the U.S. name of Justin, picked up a statue and threatened to hit his aunt after he was asked to correct some homework.

'He drew a picture of our house burning down and he'll tell anybody that he's going to burn our house down with us in it,' said Hansen's mother.

'It got to be where you feared for your safety. It was terrible.'

Neighbours in the rural town of 20,000 said Hansen was a loving mother who found she could not cope with a violent child.

Linda Austin said: 'We knew there were problems but she tried her best. I think she is getting the raw end of the deal.'

Another neighbour added: 'Torry desperately wanted a child of her own, but she just found this boy uncontrollable.'

The adoption experience is eerily similar to a recent Hollywood film called 'Orphan'.

In the film a U.S. couple adopt an eastern European girl only to discover her violent tendencies.

Artem arrived in Moscow last Thursday with a note that read: 'After giving my best to this child, I am sorry to say that for the safety of my family, friends, and myself, I no longer wish to parent this child.'

Officials in Tennessee said the boy had not been issued a U.S. passport which meant the adoption had not been formalised.

Bob Tuke, a Nashville lawyer and member of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys, said abandonment charges against the family could depend on whether the boy was a U.S. citizen.

A Tennessee health department spokeswoman said there was no birth certificate issued for the boy, a step that would indicate he had become a U.S. citizen.

Hansen, who has gone into hiding, has agreed to meet with local police.

Shelbyville Sheriff Randall Boyce said it was not clear whether any laws had been broken.

'This is extremely unusual,' Boyce said. 'I don't think anyone has seen something like this before.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1265192/Russian-president-Dmitry-Medvedevs-fury-adopted-boys-abandonment.html

Adopting a seven-year-old is very different from adopting a baby. A seven-year-old who is up for adoption is likely to be carrying significant levels of distress. A child of that age who has not been abused will carry memories of his own family and it will take some time for him to adjust. A child of that age who has been abused will probably present disturbed behaviour and need ongoing professional intervention.

The American woman who adopted Artem clearly had no idea what she was taking on, adopting a child from a country a long way geographically and culturally from her own. A distressed child, taken thousands of miles from all that he knows is not necessarily going to be grateful to the person offering him a new home and perhaps this was part of the problem with Artem's adoptive mother. Perhaps she expected him to appreciate her taking him into her good American home and family and giving him opportunities he might not have had in Russia, when what she got was a very distressed child whose behaviour disturbed the peace of her home and upset her other children.

I don't blame this woman for putting her own children first, because they are totally dependent on her for their welfare and safety, but I do think that she should have been discouraged from adopting a child from a foreign country when she had no way of getting to know him sufficiently to know if he would be able to integrate into her own family and community with any degree of success.

Adopting a child is not like buying a new car or accessory and a child who was no doubt distressed by being in the care of the Russian state has been subjected to an even more distressing situation. I think the Russian authorities are right in suspending foreign adoptions and perhaps they should make this decision permanent.

Woman abandons compassion along with adopted son

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

There isn’t a return policy for parenting.

Tell that to Torry Hansen, the adoptive mother who sent her adopted 7-year-old son back to Moscow last week after a six-month stretch of “mothering.”

Artyom Savelyev flew alone on the 10-hour flight before a strange man Hansen hired for $200 picked him up at the airport and deposited him at the Russian Ministry of Education with just a backpack and a note that read: “I no longer wish to parent this child.”

People dispose of plastic bottles with more care.

Claiming he was some sort of bad seed, Hansen wrote that Artyom, whom she renamed Justin in September, was “mentally unstable ... violent and has severe psychopathic issues/behaviors.”

She claims Russian adoption officials “misled” her about his problems “in order to get him out of their orphanage.”

Hey - this kid’s broken - can I have my money back?

“I’m disheartened and stunned,” said Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. “Adoption isn’t child rental.”

It is in a throwaway society - where only a “perfect” child will do.

Triple screens, blood tests, ultrasounds, amnios. Results bad? Terminate.

Of course, Hansen couldn’t abort a 7-year-old - but there was that direct flight to Russia just waiting for Artyom. No muss, no fuss.

Except Hansen has sparked an international incident, and Russia is now threatening to freeze U.S. adoptions indefinitely.

“This is shocking - I mean - this child is this woman’s child,” said Leah O’Leary, who runs A Red Thread Adoption Services in Norwood. “This is abandonment and criminal charges should be applied.”

That Hansen wasn’t aware of Artyom’s potential problems is hard to believe. A quick Internet search of “Russia” and “older children” and “adoption” yields a host of potential challenges, including attachment disorders, behavioral problems and psychological issues.

Don’t they have Google in Tennessee?

So Hansen adopts a 7-year-old who was taken away from his alcoholic mother and raised in an institution, and she’s surprised that he has underlying emotional problems.

Six months of home-schooling in a language he doesn’t understand and giving him a new name couldn’t have helped.

Hansen may have felt desperate, alone and overwhelmed raising a child whose life has been marked only by abandonment.

But imagine how Artyom felt on that flight back to Moscow.

http://www.bostonherald.com/entertainment/lifestyle/view.bg?&articleid=1246684&format=&page=1&listingType=life#articleFull

An excellent article, Schnuffel. That woman obviously did enough homework to find out that she could adopt from Russia. I am guessing that to her an adopted child from Russia would prove her amazing kindness and generosity to her friends and relations and be a better accessory than her Prada shoes.

I've worked with children in care and the behaviours presented by that boy are common. Anyone who fosters or adopts an older child will mostly be presented with very challenging behaviour. I worked in a children's home with a girl who had been taken back into care after about 2 years with foster-carers, simply because those carers had moved out of the area and the LA did not give permission for the child to go. The girl had taken a long time to settle with the carers but they had looked after her well and loved that girl. In the children's home the girl reverted very quickly to very disturbed behaviour, but those carers did not give up. They spent a year and buckets of money going through the courts and the day they came to fetch the girl, we, the staff, all cried! Their car had banners with the girl's name and streamers attached to the radio aerial. Those carers knew what they were taking on and they were willing to persist, which is what is needed if someone wants to take on the care of an older child who has been removed from biological parents and spent time in care.