The United States and Russia signed an adoption agreement on Wednesday that will hopefully begin to repair the embattled relationship between the two countries as it pertains to child adoption. According to the New York Times, the State Department issued a statement saying “the new agreement will give the Russian government the authority to approve which adoption agencies operate in the country, and will provide mechanisms for improving the monitoring of families after adoptions.”
The United States and Russia have had a rocky relationship in recent years pertaining to child adoption, and everything came to a head in 2010 when a mother sent the child she adopted from Russia back to his home country by himself with a note explaining that she could not handle “his severe emotional problems” according to the article. While this was the final straw, the Times said that adoptions of Russian children by Americans have been declining for years, from a high of 5,862 in 2004, that number dropped to 1,079 adoptions in 2010.
While this agreement will help solve some of the adoption issues between the United States and Russia, the article said that the relationship may continue to be contentious because “many Russians find it difficult to acknowledge that their country can no longer take care of all its children.”