Go to Nikto Ne Zabyt – Nichto Ne Zabyto for my collection of Russian posts.
Mirah Riben, author of The Dark Side of Adoption and The Stork Market appeared on the English language Russian Television (RT) yesterday to discuss international adoption corruption and the death of Russian adoptee Nathaniel Craver, born Ivan Skorobogatov. Vanya, 7, died on August 25, 2009 after being taken off life support. In 2003, he and his twin sister Dasha (now known as Elizabeth) were adopted from an orphanage in Chelyabinsk. His forever family, Michael Craver, 45 and Nanette, 54 Craver have been charged with homicide, conspiracy and child endangerment. The autopsy revealed Vanya suffered 80 external injuries, including 20 to the head. The Cravers are currently being held in the York County Jail with no bond.
The case has been handled very badly by authorities in Carroll Twn, Pennsylvania where the boy lived. This is a big story in Russia and it won’t’ go away.
I have been collecting information on the case, and have gotten behind in posting due to other work. I’ll have something shortly.
Good video clip. If adoptions are a cash crop, the kids will suffer. No matter what the “good intentions” are of the adoption agencies or the people who “rescue” these kids. Maybe not all of them, but the door is open for this abuse. Thanks for posting.
Thanks . I live in Russia part-time, but haven’t been able to get back for a long time due to funds. We’re hearing more and more about abuse cases outside of Russian adoptions, but the Russians still are the major recpient of forever family violence.
Vanya follows the pattern pretty closely, except he lived here much long than the rest. Many of these kids are adopted by “Christians,” and are socially isolated such as through home schooling. The Cravers are a real piece of work from what I’ve found so far.
Since I’ll have some free time in Sacramento, without certain domestic distractions, I’m taking my file with me and hope to get something up.
Is the higher numbers of abuse cases because it is easier to adopt from Russia, thus opening the door to more slime? Or is it something else?
I’m not sure it’s easy to adopt form Russia anymore. The problem, imo, is the long term institutionalization the kids have, but more importantly, their “problems.” Many come to orphanges abused and neglected and abandoned with all sort of problems. They were born drug or alcohol addicted and are FAS. They can have have serious health problems. Some have been subjected, in the US, to quack therapy such as attachment therapy. Some have died from it.
I’ve got some regular readers who are more familiar with this than I am.
I have been deeply troubled by what I have found in “BlogLand” regarding adoption. Over the past six months, I have run across not one, but a number of blogs that have similar themes. Christian home schooling SAHM blogging about adding to their family via adoption. I wouldn’t be so concerned except again, God’s will is all over everything and darn it, it doesn’t always work!
One example – A couple adds an adopted sibling group to their already large bio family and can’t handle one of the older adoptees and “disrupts” the adoption by placing the older child with another family. I didn’t even know you could “disrupt” an international adoption. I find out this is VERY COMMON for older children adopted from overseas. What gets me is that the mother admits that they didn’t read any of the literature provided on the various issues the adopted children could have. Oh and they homeschool and there were a number of posts on how hard it is, and it’s more – it’s hard on me, the mom (and I’m thinking these poor kids, just picked up and transplanted here – and maybe regular school might be a good American experience). I “think” the family can get away with doing what they want since I don’t believe the country they adopted from requires any sort of followup reports. Originally the country didn’t even want to place the sibling group with them, since they already had a lot of their bio kids, and country officials couldn’t understand why anyone would want more. But, the adoption got approved and off the sibling group went to the US.
There is another example where a family that has 7 adopted kids wants one more – and they were denied on the US side due to lack of income. Of course, all of their blog friends are up in arms over this! How dare they be denied their 8th adopted child? It’s God’s Will that they get another! So they are appealing. I think it was God’s will that they were denied – He is saying, you have enough!
A side note – another major theme is usually these Christian families are running low on funds. Sometimes they get their church or other folks to donate to help them in their quest. Some even have fund raising bars on their blogs.
I also feel that some (not all, but some) of these Christian SAHM enjoy this “rush” of adopting over and over again and they like to “compete” in internet land over how many kids they have. A sad state of affairs. (AnonJ)
Anon, I have wondered if, for some people, adopting is an obsession or an addiction. The problems with getting that “rush” is that often the adopted child pays with the lack of quality of care all the way to abuse ending in death.
The adoptee always pays in the end sometimes with a life.
I’m sure in some cases there is a valid reason to home school. However, it is not normal to wish to isolate your children from the world. I’ve seen many, many cases where kids were being, supposedly, home schooled but were essentially being hidden from anyone who could or would report the abuse of these children. Why is CPS not smart enough to check up on these kids? Out of sight, out of mind. Any child being home schooled should automatically be on the list to be visited by CPS on a regular basis, adopted or not.
Marley is correct about why the Russian children have borne the brunt. TMK there have been more Russian adoptees murdered at the hands of their AParents than other international adoptees – this would include Chinese, Guatemalan, Ukranian and Korean adopted children.
Most of the murdered Russian adoptees were male; Vanya, the current victim, doesn’t fit into one category: he was home longer than a year. But he fits into other categories I’ve noticed: adopted with another child at the same time; male; home schooled; issues not addressed.
E.Case