On Friday, September ninth, the Russian president, Putin, replaced the children's rights ombudsman. After the prior ombudsman, Pavel Astakhov, made a remark that enraged many Russian people, Putin had to replace him. When two boats with 14 teens capsized, he asked the survivors how the swim back was. Of course, this started a petition for him to resign, which gained over one hundred and sixty thousand signatures. Last week, he was replaced my a woman named Anna Kuznetsova.

Before I move onto Anna's new position and what it may mean for foreign adoptions in Russia, let me tell you about the Dima Yakovlev Law and the Magnitsky Act. You have probably heard of the two and how they correlate with each other, but I thought I would go into a little detail about it.

The Magnitsky Act was named after Sergei LeonidovichMagnitsky, a lawyer who was said to have been found guilty in a tax fraud. He died of a heart attack on November 16th, 2009. This was just a few days before being released, had he not been brought to trial. Although this was the reported cause of death, it was said that he was beaten to death by Russian officials. In response to the Magnitsky Act, the US wanted to punish the Russians for Sergei's death, so Obama came up with a list of 60 people involved with events, similar to Magnitsky's, who will have their visa banned. Of course, these names were never made public.

As you can imagine, the Russians saw this as the US blackmailing sixty Russians, and that upset some pretty powerful people with ties to Putin. They decided to pull out a few child abuse cases amongst their adoptees in the US, and ban adoptions to the US. Being a Russian adoptee myself, I was pretty upset by this, and still am knowing how lucky I was to have been adopted by my family. The story that they brought up the most was the story of Chase Harrison.

For those of you who do not know the story, Chase Harrison, as he was named by his American family, was left in a locked car for several hours on a hot day, and died of a heat stroke. Later, his father was charged for voluntary manslaughter. Chase's Russian name was Dima Yakovlev. This was the little two year old boy that the anti-Magnitsky act was named after. Putin signed the law in December of 2012, and it came into action in January of 2013. For the past three and a half years, the Dima Yakovlev Law (or Zakon Dima Yakobleva in Russian) has prevented Americans from adopting from Russia. Recently, it has spread to countries that have legalized same sex marriage.

However, this is only one case of an American adoption from Russia. In most cases, Russian Adoptees are brought into loving and caring families in the US, who would never even think twice about leaving a child in a car, or hitting them or anything. In fact, more citizens of other countries adopted from Russia than Russians did before the ban, Americans being the top contender.

In 2013, several adoption cases in the process were canceled due to the new law. Since 1991 until 2013, Americans have adopted over 60,000 of Russia's children. Most of them have had the opportunity to live a better life in a loving family rather than an orphanage, not to mention the opportunity to lead a healthier lifestyle. Now that the ban has been in place, many orphans have lost their right to be adopted by so many possible families. Personally, it breaks my heart to read about those who were in the process of adoption when the ban was set and were unable to go through. Of course, this ban happened for politics reasons, which now stands in the way of hundreds of thousands of Russia's orphans futures.

So you may be wondering where I was going when I started that Anna Kuznetsova would be taking the place of Pavel Astakhov. Well, at first I was hopeful that this would be a change for the better when I heard that a woman was taking over. I thought her motherly instincts would tell her to take a few steps backwards with the law and eventually help abolish it. Unfortunately, her motherly instincts as a woman lead her to believe that it is better to keep children in the Russian Federation, instead of letting them be adopted in another country. She strongly believes that if children were adopted to another country, they would have a higher chance of developing disease and disability which would lead them to a higher risk of death in another country. While it is more common for learning disabilities and other mental health issues to develop in Russian adoptees than other foreign adoptees in the US, it is a lot easier to get treatment in places in Russia.

I have looked into Anna Kuznetsova, and she works for a pre abortion counseling center. I do not intend to sway anyone's opinion of her because of this. Personally, I believe this is a factor that plays into her support for the Dima Yakovlev Law. She handles talking to women about abortion as an option and helps them through it for a living. In Russia, giving in to adoption is culturally looked down upon, and she seems to be keep her opinions strong and as stationary as a mountain.

With her as the new children's ombudsman, the Dima Yakovlev Law seems like it will only get stronger. As someone who is adopted from Russia and still holds her Russian citizenship, I have been trying to keep myself updated on the foreign adoption policy in Russia. The most recent thing I have read was that you have to be a Russian citizen AND be a permanent resident. I have also always thought about the possibility of me adopting from Russia in the future when I am ready, which is not looking so good.