Monday, July 1, 2013

Russia is pissing me off again

The most horrible thing has happened to a child who was born in Russia.

He wasn't exactly adopted, because it appears that a "gay" couple (it will become evident why I doubt their homosexuality in a bit) hired a Russian woman to be their surrogate. In the US, surrogacy does not involve adoption, as far as I know. In any case, the men-who-claim-to-be-a-gay-couple sexually abused their son in a whole variety of horrifying ways, which is an inexcusable crime and these men deserve to not only lose their son forever but also to rot in jail and then hell. (You know, if there is an afterlife, which there isn't but at moments like these I like to imagine one because there really is no way these men could suffer enough in one human lifetime.)

Russia has no jurisdiction in this case because the child in question was an American citizen at the time the crimes were discovered, the men involved were an American and an Australian, and the crimes happened in France, Germany, the US and New Zealand (I think. News reports are not consistent.) The American Judge who did have jurisdiction sentenced the men to 40 years in prison. The boy is now living with someone else, either a relative or another family (again, news reports are inconsistent.)

But here's why I'm pissed at Russia. If you have the stomach for it, read this story from an Australian news source, and then this one from Russia. For those who are easily sickened, I'll sum up: The Australian story gives us some details including the names of the convicted criminals, what happened, and what is going to happen now. The Russian story features our old friend Pavel Ashtakov, who claims the boy was purchased from his mother, that Americans sexually assault children all the time, and that the solution to the problem is to stop international adoption.

I'm not exaggerating. At all. He seriously said those things, and this guy is a major influence in Russian politics AND the principal man in charge of deciding what happens to the 120,000 children currently living in Russian orphanages.

This is the same country that just made it illegal to be gay in public. Because, you know, kids won't grow up to be gay if they don't see gay people holding hands on the street and there are no Russian pedophiles.

And they gave away my friend's kid this week in defiance of a request from the European Court that no action be taken until they heard my friend's case. Honestly, I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, my friend is devastated and I feel her pain. It's real pain, and Pavel can go to hell for causing it. (Note the above disclaimer about hell.) But I don't think Pavel was ever going to let those 300 kids go, and that being the case, it's better for the little girl to be in a family than in an orphanage, and hopefully my friend will be able to move on now and find a child she can adopt. I hate myself for feeling that way, because it feels like I'm letting my friend down, but this is just a hateful, horrible situation and there's no way to feel good about it.

I may even have to boycott the Olympics next winter, which would be really hard for me because I am a total Olympic freak, but that country has gotten completely bonkers and I'm afraid for the safety of gay Olympians, and afraid to seem to be endorsing anything Russia is up to right now. The human rights violations are just sickening and I'm not sure there's anything we can do about it.

Update 7/1/13:

I got this comment on Facebook, and thought I'd post it here for everyone to read:

Janine Beth Howard Gorell Of course Pavlov never mentions that orphans "graduating" from orphanages are REALLY ripe pickings for exploitation. And there are a lot more of those with adoption being unilaterally closed.

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