The number of Russian children adopted by foreigners has almost halved over the past five years, an official with the Russian Ministry of Education and Science said on Monday.
The number of children adopted by Russians, however, increased by 27% over the same period, said Alina Levitskaya, the director of the ministry's department for education and social adaptation of children.
"In 2007, we [the ministry] permitted foreign nationals to adopt 4,536 children and 3,815 children in 2009. This is a 27% decline over the past two years and around a 50% decline over the past five years," she said.
The issue of Russian child adoptions by foreigners has been in the public focus recently as a result of a number of highly publicized incidents.
In June, a 7-year-old boy was placed alone on a one-way flight to Moscow by his U.S. adoptive mother with a note claiming he was "psychopathic".
Following the case, Russia threatened to prohibit child adoptions by U.S. citizens until the countries sign an intergovernmental agreement guaranteeing the rights of adoptive children.
RIA Novosti
