A Lake Elsinore mother of four’s battle to adopt a Russian girl with Down syndrome — one of hundreds of abandoned children whom the Russian government refuses to release to adoptive parents in the United States and Europe — is profiled in a documentary that went live Friday on YouTube.
The subtitled documentary, which features several segments with Morriss, is available to view free until Monday.
“We’re trying to find any angle to get our story out there,” Morriss told City News Service.
She said this time of year is particularly painful, with the arrival of the holidays and Natasha’s birthday — which the girl will again spend in an orphanage.
“She will be 11 years old on December 19th,” Morriss said. “I have once again sent gifts to her orphanage.”
“Children of the State” examines why Morriss and her husband, as well as dozens of other families from the United States, Germany, Spain and France, are being rebuffed by Russian officials when they attempt to finalize adoption processes.
According to the documentary, the government is citing a 2012 law, the Yakolev Act, in taking a hard line against foreign adoptions. The law was in response to the 2008 death of Dima Yakolev, a 2-year-old who was adopted by a New York couple.
The adoptive father, Miles Harrison, left the tot strapped in a car seat, apparently forgetting about the youngster as he headed into his office on a sweltering hot day. Dima died of heatstroke. A judge ruled it an accident.
Russian officials pointed to similar instances involving 19 other children in U.S. households ahead of the Yakolev Act’s ratification. But according to a journalist featured in “Children of the State,” Russian orphanages receive tens of billions of dollars from the government annually, and funding is only assured as long as the dormitories are kept full, so there’s no incentive to let the youngsters go.
The documentarians argue that Russian children are losing the opportunity to live in loving homes in the U.S. and European nations. According to “Children of the State,” almost two-thirds of Russian orphans are physically and sexually abused growing up in publicly run facilities.
The filmmakers say that many Russians adopt, but only a small number of children with disabilities, like Natasha, are taken.
“There is so much anguish,” Morriss told CNS. “I am trying to get sympathy in hopes of finally getting her home.”
After the Yakolev law went into effect, 300 children with special needs, including Natasha, were prohibited from leaving Russia to join their adoptive parents in the U.S.
Morriss and her husband, along with 20 other American couples, filed a lawsuit in the European Court of Human Rights seeking to have the adoption ban invalidated, but Russia asserted its sovereignty.
According to the Lake Elsinore mom, her efforts to enlist the support of the Obama administration and Congress have yielded no results.
However, she and other members of an organization that she co-founded, Parents United for Russian Orphans, are hopeful that the incoming Trump administration might be more receptive.
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— City News Service