UPDATES: Atryem/Artyom Savilliev and his Abandoner Torry Hansen

The agency responsible for placing this child into the hands of this ill-prepared single mother has been identified as WACAP. Their statement appears here.

4.09.10

WACAP has placed approximately 1,000 children from Russia since 1995. To ensure the safety of each adopted child and a positive adjustment for their adoptive family, WACAP offers all of its families ongoing support and classes to help them with the transition of bringing a new child into their home.

On April 9, 2010 we were saddened to learn that a child adopted from Russia traveled to Moscow without his parent. We were alerted to this situation by our branch office in Moscow, Russia and are shocked and saddened by this turn of events. Upon learning this news, WACAP immediately notified all of the proper authorities. In rare cases of an adoption dissolution (1%), WACAP has always supported and worked closely with adopted parents to assist the child in moving into a new adoptive family.

Due to laws of confidentiality pertaining to adoption cases, we cannot provide any additional details at this time.

Why did Torry Hansen not tell them she was having problems? Why had she reportedly "consulted" with a psychologist but did not take Artyom to any?

These are just two of many unanswered questions. Etta's blog asks several more compelling questions this case raises:

� What was Ms. Hansen's motivation to adopt?

� What education and training did she receive?

� What were the qualifications of the home study worker? How many home study visits and meetings occurred? What questions were asked and issues explored? Were any difficulties identified?

� What did Ms. Hansen understand about the inherent risks of adopting an older child? Did she understand the challenges of being a single adoptive mother?

� What was her understanding of the losses that a child of Artyom's age experiences when leaving his country of birth and everything familiar to him? What did her placement agency and home study provider teach her about the expected adjustment difficulties a child would experience and what she could do to mitigate them?

� What information did Ms. Hansen receive about Artyom? Was the information honest and complete? Was there a history of abuse? Did she have ample time to consider the referral? Did she have the opportunity to seek consultation with medical and mental health professionals about the referral?

� Did Ms. Hansen have plans for support and for seeking assistance, if needed, after placement?

� Did she understand cultural identity? Did she understand the ramifications of changing Artyom's name? Were translators available during Artyom's first months in the US? What opportunities did he have to be with Russian speakers and role models?

� What was the nature of the post-adoption visit in January? What questions were asked? What supports were offered? Did Ms. Hansen have an opportunity to discuss concerns and ask questions? Did the worker meet with Artyom alone? Was there any indication during that visit that things were not going well?

� What were the first signs of difficulties? When did they occur? To whom, if anyone, did Ms. Hansen reach out for assistance? What did she do to try to avoid dissolution of the adoption?

And the most important questions:

WHEN will we as a nation stop commodifying children by allowing their transfer to be handled by those more interested in collecting a fee than in the best interest of any child?

WHEN will all transnational adoptions be stopped and countries focus their resourses on caring for their pone children and families in crisis?

Will Hansen be Charged with Abandonment?

It's questionable and oddly seems to hinge on a technicality.

Randall Boyce, Sheriff of Tennessee's Bedford County 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."

Bob Tuke, a Nashville attorney and member of American Academy of Adoption Attorneys, said abandonment charges against the family could depend on whether the boy was a U.S. citizen, and it isn't clear if the adoption had been finalized. 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.There was no response to a knock at Torry Hansen's door, and a phone listing couldn't be found for her. Her mother also declined to put AP in touch with her, and the family has since retained an attorney.

Distorted Priorities

"That incidents like the one today can cause children to remain in orphanages rather than be adopted by loving families is the real tragedy," said Sue Gainor, who adopted a child from Russia in 2001 and is the national chairperson of Families for Russian and Ukranian Adoption.

Really? That's the real tragedy? Kids are far better off in an orphanage within their own culture than beaten to death or subjected to another abandonment like this - whether it is "legally" and technically an abandonment or not.

UPDATE: Russia has suspended the license of WACAP, the placing agency, a spokesperson says the State Department

Video Interview on RT TV Re Artyem Savilev aka Artyom Savelyev

"Disannuled" Adoption

Torry Hansen, 33, and her mother Nancy insist they did not abandon Artyom Savelyev because an attorney she found online told her it was OK.

Torry Hansen is not only a poor excuse for mother, it is a wonder ho she passed exams to become a nurse since she lacks proper English skills. The note she sent off with the child she decided to return, stated that she no longer wishes to parent the child and "would like the adoption disannulled." Duh...HUH...aint that like a double negative?

When the lawyer she found online advised her the adoption could be reversed, Hansen booked the flight and paid the fee for a steward to escort Justin through the airport, her mother Nancy said. She hired a driver in Moscow she found online to pick the child up from the Moscow airport, she said. She found "safe references" for the driver online, she said.

When her daughter, Torry Hansen, adopted the boy from a Russian orphanage last year, she asked the doctor there if he had any physical or mental problems, Nancy Hansen says.

The doctor answered "'He's healthy,' and turned and left," she said.

The Russian Children's Rights Commissioner Pavel Astakhov, however, said the child was "completely healthy, physically and mentally" before the adoption. "Nobody withheld anything from her [Torry Hansen]," he said. "It's a lie."

Once the child learned enough English, he told the Hansen's about the horrors of his previous life, including being beaten at the orphanage after his mother abandoned him, she said.

Joe Soll speaks out, criticizing the trauma of adption separation and loss.

Chuck Johnson of NCFA also was interviewed by RT and focuses on the majority of adoptions of Russian adptions that are happily-ever-after and spoke glowingly about the Hague.

Follow-Up: Single Mother Named in Case of Child Sent Back to Russia

Adoption freeze urged after boy returned to Russia

"I no longer wish to parent this child," the note read, calling the boy a liability.

MOSCOW — Russia should freeze all child adoptions with U.S. families, the country's foreign minister urged Friday after an American woman allegedly put her 8-year-old adopted Russian son on a one-way flight back to his homeland.

Artyom Savelyev arrived in Moscow unaccompanied on a United Airlines flight Thursday from Washington, the Kremlin children's rights office said Friday.

The children's office said the boy, whose adoptive name is Justin Hansen, was carrying a letter from his adoptive mother, Torry Hansen of Shelbyville, Tennessee, saying she was returning him due to severe psychological problems.

The New York Times reports that: Officials said Artyom’s adoptive grandmother accompanied him on a flight on Wednesday from Tennessee to Washington, and then put him on the flight to Moscow. It was not immediately known which adoption agency handled his case.

"This child is mentally unstable. He is violent and has severe psychopathic issues," the letter said, according to Russian officials, who sent what they said was a copy of the letter to The Associated Press. The authenticity of the letter could not be independently verified.

The boy is now in the hospital in northern Moscow for a checkup, Anna Orlova, spokeswoman for Kremlin's Children Rights Commissioner Pavel Astakhov, told The Associated Press.

Orlova, who visited Savelyev on Friday, said the child reported that his mother was "bad," "did not love him," and used to pull his hair and his grandmother always shouted at him.

Savelyev was adopted late September last year from the town of Partizansk in Russia's Far East.

He turned up at the door of the Russian Education and Science Ministry on Thursday afternoon accompanied by a Russian man who had been hired by Savelyev's adopted grandmother to pick him up from the airport, according to the ministry. The chaperone handed over the boy and his documents, and then left, officials said.

The education minister said later Friday that it had decided to suspended the license of World Association for Children and Parents — a Renton, Washington-based agency that processed Savelyev's adoption — for the duration of the probe.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in televised remarks that the ministry would recommend that the U.S. and Russia hammer out an agreement before any new adoptions are allowed.

"We have taken the decision ... to suggest a freeze on any adoptions to American families until Russia and the USA sign an international agreement" on the conditions for adoptions and the obligations of host families, Lavrov was quoted as saying.

Lavrov said the U.S. had refused to negotiate such an accord in the past but "the recent event was the last straw."

Last year, nearly 1,600 Russian children were adopted in the United States, according to Tatyana Yakovleva of the ruling United Russia party.

Rob Johnson, a spokesman for the Tennessee Department of Children's Services, said the agency is looking into the allegations, although they do not handle international adoptions.

Torry Ann Hansen is listed as a licensed registered nurse in Shelbyville, Tenn., according to the Tennessee Department of Health's Web site. No work address is listed.

Her name appears in a list of August 2007 graduates from Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tenn., with a Masters of Science in Nursing degree.

United Airlines allows unaccompanied children as young as 5 years old on direct flights. Children age 8 and above can catch connecting flights, as well. A United spokesperson wasn't immediately available to comment.

ABCNews reports that "procedures include not allowing an unaccompanied minor to travel on a one-way ticket and making sure the child boards the plane with signed paperwork and a name, sometimes even a photo, of who will care for the child at the destination." It is also reported that Artyem was traveling on an expired visa.

According to the NY Times: the United States ambassador to Russia, John Beyrle, said he was “deeply shocked and outraged” by Artyom’s case, and “it is hard to accept how any family could so cruelly treat a child that they had officially adopted.”

Nancy Hansen, reportedly said they had also paid a driver $200 to pick the boy up at the airport and take him to the Russian Education and Science Ministry.

CBS News reports that she claims it wasn't child abandonment because a stewardess was watching the boy on the flight and a reputable person picked him up in Russia.

Sources also quote the letter the child carried with him from Hanson stated: "I was lied to and misled by the Russian orphanage workers and director regarding his mental stability."

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/04/09/russia-adoption-tennessee.html#ixzz0kcORy2eU

FOLLOW THIS BLOG FOR UPDATES AND A LINK TO MY Russia-America TV INTERVIEW TODAY.

See it LIVE on Time Warner TODAY at 5 PM ch. 135...or at http://RT.com click "America" for a LIVE STREAM.

American Adopters Send Adopted 8-year old Back to Russia – by Himself!

I have been invited back to do another Russian-American TV interview regarding this horrendous case of child abandonment, I hope these adopters will be identified and charged with child abandonment, and endangering the welfare of a minor. (The airline should also be held culpable for accepting a child without assurance that arrangements had bene made for someone to meet at arrival.)

American parents send adopted 8-year old back to Russia – by himself

An 8-year old boy arrived at a Moscow airport from the United States on Saturday morning. “I refuse him”, read the note the boy carried with him.

The Russian internet daily Gazeta.ru quoted the Russian representative on children’s rights, Pavel Astakhov, as saying the child had been earlier adopted in Russia by an American couple. The boy was adopted six months ago.

The fact that an 8-year old arrived by plane without accompanying adults was revealed only at immigration control. Astakhov learned that the boy had been adopted earlier from the care taking bodies. As of Thursday evening the boy was taken to a police station in Moscow and the hearing representative went there, too, to clarify the situation.

Read more

Later in the day Astakhov spoke on the Ekho Moskvy radio station and said the boy’s name is Artyom (aka Artem) Justin Hanson. The boy was born in Vladivostok, in Russia’s Far East, and arrived in Moscow from Washington.

“That's the letter the boy had with him, where his adopted mother says that she is disappointed, that she is sorry, that she sees that the child is unstable and in order not to ruin her own family, herself and relations with her friends, she wants to give up the child,” Astakhov said. “The American Consul confirms that there is a procedure to give up a child; it's not that easy, it's not a pet that you can take and then give away.”

Further, Astakhov said he would ask the authorities to suspend the practice of Russian children’s adoption by Americans. “We must tighten the control over candidates for international adoption. I will raise this question now as it is possible that we must even suspend American adoptions to clarify how many similar cases we have there,” the Russian official said.

Now Artyom is being treated at one of the hospitals in the Russian capital. According to a preliminary examination by doctors, his condition is satisfactory.

This latest case is just one of many adoption scandals with Russian orphans and American adoptive parents being involved.

According to officials, the boy does not speak in Russian, but does understand Russian. The children's ombudsman, located in the police department, said the boy was named Artem. American parents gave him the name Artem Justin Hanson. He was adopted six months ago.

The American consulate has tried to acknowledge that they will take care of the boy but Russian police found a Russian passport on him and that gives Russia the ability to control the destiny of the child. As this is not the first time that Americans are having problems with the adoption of Russian children, and it seems that Russia is seeing a need to have tighter controls in the process of adoption.

See: 3/5 post; 3/15 post; 3/16 post

People like this need to be punished to the fulle extent of the law to send message to others that children do not come with warranties or gauarantees and are not "returnable." This is egregious and will likely cause international consequences as well as simply being immoral to take the adoption of a child so cavlerly and selfshly cause lifelong harm to this child.

VIDEO

From Down Under: More Apologies for Forced Adoptions

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