Very soon, the process of adoption in Russia can be significantly complicated. Moreover, we are not talking about foreign citizens, but about ordinary Russians. They want to oblige all candidates for adoptive parents in Russia to undergo a psychological examination. This requirement is contained in the adoption bill, along with a number of other requirements, restrictions and prohibitions. In this way, the state is going to intercede for the poor stepdaughter in front of the evil stepmother.
However, one of the main experts in the field of adoption, lawyer and scientific director of the Institute for Family Educational and Legal Programs (ISPP), Anton Zharov, who participated in the finalization of this bill, believes that in its current form the document will become a kind of law of Dima Yakovlev, directed against Russians and will drive orphans back to orphanages.
He spoke about this and many other things in an interview with a Lenta.ru correspondent.
"Lenta.ru": There is a feeling that the country is trying to adopt another law of Dima Yakovlev. Only for their own. Everything seems to be with the best intentions, but … How does his action affect the current situation? Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova, for example, said that the number of adoptions of Russian children by foreign citizens had halved.
Anton Zharov: If you look in retrospect, that cannibalistic story led to a number of consequences, including positive ones: it helped to improve the arrangement of children in Russia. As they say, there was a fire, people died, but the rest bought themselves fire extinguishers.
International adoption remains the last chance for children. It is allowed twelve months after the child enters the base. Usually he does not spend so much time in it: they will take him somewhere to Russia.
Do the authorized bodies have any unspoken guidelines regarding foreigners?
Yes, under no circumstances give. This is not even an indication, but a general idea. But now I am more worried about the advancement of the bill, which could become an analogue of Dima Yakovlev's law for my fellow citizens.
Is it that bad? You yourself participated in its development?
Yes, I did. But not in development - I do not know the author myself - but in finalization by a working group in the Ministry of Education. I do not agree with the bill, but I helped to write the wording. I'd rather do it than someone completely illiterate. The problem is that the document is based on incorrect premises and so far we, the experts, have hardly succeeded in making the necessary amendments to it.
Which ones?
The problem is too simplistic. It seems that if there is better selection of guardians, the number of crimes against children will decrease. But, firstly, it is already calculated only in dozens a year, and secondly, no one has ever proven in any way that these crimes are caused by “bad selection” and not situational problems, for example.
And it turns out that in its current form, the bill is intended to annoy, restrict foster parents and discourage those who want to become them. Ideologically, it is about the fact that children should live in orphanages.
But is there a somewhat suspicious, condescending or even negative attitude towards such families not only among officials, but also in society itself? We all know from childhood fairy tales about evil stepmothers torturing stepdaughters.
Yes, many ordinary people think so: “they have recruited children and are making money on it”. It turns out that the payments provided by the state are blamed on the adoptive parents, as if they were stealing something. But both the children and the money associated with this are not begged by adoptive parents, they are given by the state.
If you don’t want to - don’t give it, but first you should officially pay the money, and then shout “ponabrali”? It looks like a claim to a pensioner for a “big” pension because of a long experience: “I worked here”!
And what to do?
This attitude needs to be changed. In the United States, for example, the state even sponsors films and cartoons that positively reflect the theme of the life of children in foster families.
For example, in "Ice Age" there is a character - the sloth Sid. He was introduced there specifically in order to tell about the behavior of the adopted teenager.
Clear. When you read that the Russian draft law is about the broad involvement of psychologists in working with candidates for foster parents, this is also perceived as progress. You even doubt that the bill will be supported for economic reasons, given the course towards widespread budget cuts. At whose expense, for example, will the survey be carried out and how much will it cost?
In the first edition, a standard piece of paper was attached to the explanatory note to the bill, which stated that the implementation of the provisions of the document would not require budgetary expenditures.
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Now the part of “not” has been removed from the text, but I think there are no calculations yet. A center with psychologists is already operating in the Moscow region as a pilot project. At the expense of the regional budget. But this is a wildly expensive pleasure. And, of course, even in the Moscow region everything is conditionally "good" - in areas closer to Moscow, and not so much - in areas farther away.
But where will find the budget for all these "state psychologists", for example, Smolensk or Abakan - I do not know.
Who is promoting this legislative initiative?
It was the Investigative Committee that suddenly decided that it was possible to identify potential criminals among potential parents.
As you understand, if such technologies or techniques really existed, then instead of prisons we would have skyscrapers with psychologists.
Has this document passed public discussion and approval?
It cannot be called a discussion when you can only express your opinion, but you cannot ask specific questions and get answers to them.
Approbation is underway, but no conclusions can be drawn from it. For example, 84 examinations were carried out in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug in a year and one person was weeded out. This already means that the tool is not working. Is not it?
And no one can say - one weeded out - is it good or bad? But what everyone else went through - how to evaluate? There are no negative consequences, because no one died or got sick, but there is no harm from the consumption of homeopathy, as well as benefit.
Why did you take up this topic yourself?
There is a category of the population for which there is no one to say "a" or "b". These are children, whose legal representatives are directors of orphanages, who will never stand up and shout: "What are you doing, you will stop adoption like that!" These officials have other tasks. They have per capita funding and so on.
Judging by what happened in the last decade, the position of the state was to distribute all children to families and close orphanages. Now, making the adoption process more difficult, does it no longer strive for this?
When Dmitry Livanov was the Minister of Education, we received schools for foster parents and perhaps even excessive financial support for foster families. Orphanages were closed under him. Now people have come with a different approach. For example, Olga Vasilieva calls adoptive parents "so-called parents" - this already speaks of a certain cool attitude towards them.
Tatiana Sinyugina, a professional and a good person, is in charge of guardianship and trusteeship, but she worked all her life in the guardianship authorities and never looked at what was happening from the side of her parents.
How many children live in foster families and how many in orphanages?
430 thousand minors live in foster families (under guardianship or in a foster family), and 40 thousand children live in orphanages (these are left without parental care and more than 30 thousand - at the request of parents).
And before?
Previously, there were 100 and even 120 thousand children in institutions who were left without parental care. Only I would not be very happy. The positive statistics reflect a decrease in the child population in general and the activity of identifying children left without parental care.
With demography, it is clear why they began to identify less?
Maybe they began to work better with blood families, or maybe they deliberately try to take less. If earlier they came, saw the dirt at home and took them away, now the guardianship authorities, frightened by Malakhov's programs, are in no hurry. They do not need statistics, or rather, the governors have data on the number of orphanages - and the fewer there are, the more prosperous the situation in the region is.
Do you think that you need to take children from blood parents more often?
A family entering a crisis, as a rule, does not get out of it by itself. You need to deal with it, maybe without any radical decisions, but do it. This is what we need. And with us, something starts when it's too late.
Why?
Much depends on how old the child will be, when his mom and dad change jobs to alcoholism. If two years old, then the family will come to the attention of the guardianship authorities by the age of seven, at best. It so happened that the state and society cares more about babies and schoolchildren.
And so, I repeat, when adults have completely lost the habit of working, cooking, cleaning and caring for children, police and guardianship officers come. Often all they can do is scream and threaten: get a job, stop drinking, or your children will be taken away. But a person in such a state cannot take and change. To begin with, he simply does not trust these people in uniform.
How else to talk to them?
In fact, an alcoholic is also a person with whom you need to be able to negotiate. There are NGOs capable of doing this, although, of course, seeing a subject who hates everything and everyone, and even ruins a child, there is no desire but to scream. A common man in the street.
There are also specialists among the guardianship and police officers. At least experienced people for sure.
Yes, but they act as controllers where helpers are needed. They talk in the language of demands until they run out of patience. As a result, the child is taken away from the family at the age of eight - and it will be much more difficult for him to find a new one. Foster parents willingly take apart the kids, and those who are able to take an eight-year or ten-year-old understand that he has already formed his own ideas about the family.
What I mean is that there are children who need to be selected at two years old. And then neither they, nor with them will have problems. Rather, there will be much fewer problems.
What is the situation in orphanages? Maybe it's already better there than in many poor Russian families?
Children should not enter such institutions, no matter how modern and beautiful they are, and if they do, they should leave them as soon as possible - this position is shared by all specialists in Russia and abroad.
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However, there is a feeling that the current leadership of the Ministry of Education does not think so. The life of children in orphanages, as well as their socialization after graduation, is a topic that for some reason has not been properly researched for a long time. Apparently they are afraid.
In the late 90s, the Research Institute of the Prosecutor General's Office analyzed the statistics and it turned out that only 10 percent of graduates of such institutions successfully socialized, the rest had serious problems with alcohol, the law, and so on. Since then, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge, of course, and the situation has changed. Orphans began to be given housing, albeit with a sin in half.
How do you feel about such families where ten or more children live? It already looks like a small orphanage.
There are very kind, caring and hardworking parents with many children. From them directly solid positive comes. Not just a family, but a picture. Officials rejoice and say: “Let's give them two more guys and three more and more …” As a result, these wonderful people are brought to such a state that they are simply physically unable to pull everything on themselves.
At this critical moment, someone begins to scold such families, someone - to justify. In fact, you need to think about who gives them so many children and why? Who brings them to the end and how to get them out of the crisis?
You said that the initiator of the current bill is the Investigative Committee, which is thus supposed to reduce crime in foster families. Is this really a big problem?
We are talking about two dozen crimes a year. Total. Let me remind you, we have 430 thousand adopted children. But even these twenty cases, no one really analyzed in order to identify any patterns. I am sure that in most cases we were talking about such families to which the guardianship authorities had no complaints, where the inspectors came as expected, and so on.
There are no analysts, but there is a bill, and the Investigative Committee reported with its help to the president.
It's hard to say what the Ministry of Education is interested in. But now we see that only schools and kindergartens remain subordinate to them, and here a whole structure of psychologists and all kinds of bosses will be created over them.
There is, apparently, the threat of new corruption extortions for the correct conclusion of a psychologist, for example.
The bill did not pass an independent examination on this topic for some reason. It would be interesting to have certified specialists say about it at the official or informal level. I believe there are corruption risks there.
We are talking about the danger of reducing the number of potential adoptive parents. How many are there now?
The Ministry of Education gives figures that we have 40 thousand children and 40 thousand parents in the queue, but in fact, the queue of parents is a speculative concept. There is no such official federal queue for children.
You come to the regional databank of Moscow, Tula or Tambov. We got registered everywhere, as those wishing to take an adopted child, and then went to Ryazan, found a boy or a girl there and took him away. Everything. After that, will you write to other data banks to deregister you? No, you have no time for that.
And Tambov is counting you and somewhere in a year they write to you that, they say, there are suitable candidates, they will invite you. Only then will they know that you no longer need anything. Therefore, the line of adoptive parents is a line of dead souls.
Moreover, this is not a line for socks, they say, they will get at least some. Everything is arranged differently here. Maybe you want to accept a child, but now there is no such in the data bank, or you have not found it yet. Or rather, you have not met each other with this child yet.
The foster school is considered one of the most successful adoption projects. How many people refuse adoption after graduation?
Now they are trying to find out in such a way that they call the director of each school and ask, but how does he know? The people were released and they dropped out of his sight.
In our school, foster parents sometimes decide to postpone this business at least one third of the graduates, admit they are not ready. There is nothing bad here. On the contrary, the person, therefore, has thought about it thoroughly, and we helped him.
It turns out that the selection is already underway and no new surveys are needed?
We have a graduation interview. I sit in the room with the man, as a leader, and as a psychologist with whom he passed all the tests. We ask a person if he considers himself ready to take a child, and then we tell him that from our point of view there are such and such questions that he personally would be good to pay attention to. We give him a recommendation on how to resolve these issues.
All of this only works if you have told the person about it face to face and while maintaining confidentiality. If I put this on paper and send it to the guardianship authorities, then the school can be closed.
Why?
No one else will come there or tell anything truthfully about themselves.
But if he is obliged, then where will he go. And you, as an experienced person, can you draw any conclusions in appearance?
Look, concepts like "strange person" or "suspicious person" don't make any sense. Rather, we should say that we are all strange from someone's point of view.
People who have families and children are very different from each other, and therefore we simply cannot seriously determine the "suitability" of a person for fatherhood or motherhood. We will get to eugenics, to selection.
Yes, not everyone can do ballet, fly a passenger liner or catch criminals, but almost everyone can start a family and become parents.
But there are still requirements for adoptive parents.
Yes, eligibility for adoptive parents today is determined by clear requirements. We really cannot entrust a child to a person when he has a very small income, there are some, including mental, illness or three imprisonment for murder.
But even these formal restrictions are not absolute. Sometimes the court in the interests of the child may not apply them in a particular case. This is correct, and serious work has been done to create such exceptions to the rules.
Maybe you shouldn't exaggerate so much. They will begin to carry out these studies on a carbon copy, just for the sake of formality. And nobody gets hurt.
It won't work that way. Let's say a woman successfully passed a psychologist and formalized custody, but over the next few years something happens in her head that results in a kind of tragedy. Will this specialist who examined her bear some responsibility?
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I think, quite, since the Investigative Committee became the initiator of the law. So, psychologists, hold on! There will still be two dozen cases a year across the country. Now while the staff of the guardianship is taking the rap. The bosses calmly drain them and don't even try to protect them.
Sadly, psychologists must understand what they are doing.
There is a huge center in the Moscow region that deals with psychological examination of candidates for adoptive parents. Conclusions from there go immediately to the guardianship, and people give written consent to confide in a specialist even before the procedure. Thus, it is almost impossible to challenge the refusal decision in court.
We can say that people are simply deceived by obtaining this voluntary consent. So they say: voluntary, voluntary, but if you do not go, then we will not give you a conclusion. And many believe.
Can you give an example from life?
Here is a typical example. The woman, who is a mother of many children, was denied custody because she has a "vacuum in the field of beauty, nature and art." And the specialists didn’t like the fact that they did not agree with their husband about which child to take. The husband is in favor of taking a girl from 9 to 12 years old, and the wife is from 5 to 9 years old.
They had to make some kind of straight portrait? The real person I need, who will become my husband or wife, may differ significantly from my ideas and ideals. It's very personal. And now I have to defend this ideal in front of some psychologist chosen not by me? To prove that I do not have a "vacuum in beauty"?
What other problems are there in this bill?
Family change of residence only with the permission of the guardianship. This is a violation of one of the basic rights prescribed in the constitution that cannot be justified by caring for a child.
And what is it? People often limit their rights to achieve the goals they need.
First, it's about trust. Suspicion should not be driven to the point of absurdity. Let’s then come home to foster families once every two weeks and do washings from the dishes, check how well they are washed, because a child can get diphtheria?
Secondly, how does the move take place in life? So I live in Magadan and decide to move to Moscow with my family. I sell an apartment there and buy it here on credit. Then - we move. I get a job and do repairs on the sly. If I have a foster child, I report myself to the local guardianship authority. People come from there and check the living conditions. Normal scheme.
And how should everything look after the adoption of the law? Without selling housing in Magadan, I have to buy something suitable in terms of footage in Moscow, make repairs there and also persuade the metropolitan guardianship authorities to write a positive act. On some flights back and forth, you will go broke. And who will sit with the child at this time if you are raising him alone?
With such restrictions we directly influence the fate of living people. Here, a woman raising an adopted child, met a worthy man, wanted to move in with him, but the guardianship authority did not give her consent. And what can this lead to? To keep her lonely?
Formally, the state proceeds from the priority of the child's interests.
No one is considering the option when the move is caused by the interests of the adopted child himself: it is more convenient to treat, teach and even just live in the capital region for many reasons. For example, children with orphan illnesses can often receive care in only one hospital per country, and this is usually Moscow or St. Petersburg. Will we simply measure the ability to survive by square meters?
But the trust you have emphasized may not be justified?
Nobody offers to trust blindly, but there are already enough barriers, but no help. I'm not talking about money. Large payments sometimes attract dishonest people. I'm talking about quality support.
Which one?
The bill provides for a whole institution of support, and foster parents naively think that this will be such a hut where a psychologist, teacher, lawyer and social worker will be put in, ready to help them.
In fact, the escort, which is already being tested in Moscow, implies the appearance of another controller, who will come not once every six months, as a guardianship officer, but once a month.
People get real support, real help in non-profit organizations. What social service is most in demand among foster families? Nanny for an hour so that mom can leave home, leaving the children to someone to whom they can be trusted.
But the state does not want to provide such nannies. It is better to send a psychologist who will tell you what else this tired mother needs to do. And each such visit is just extra stress: wash the apartment, comb the kids' hair …
Did you manage to make any amendments to the bill?
We have ensured that a person can choose an organization in which he will be accompanied. They also removed the clause on the plan for the adaptation of the child in the family, which had to go down to the guardian without fail.
How does the forthcoming reform correlate with what is happening in the West?
Europe has come a long way in child protection - and it is different for each country. I am not saying that everything is perfect abroad. It is important that we cannot directly use this experience with us. Only partially.
I would like to note that what is common there is people's trust in the state and the state in people.