Adopted Boy Sent Back to Russia Confused and Crying
A Tennesee mother’s decision to send her 7-year-old adopted son back to Russia, alone and with a note that she no longer wanted him, has horrified officials and adoption experts in both countries.
The boy was placed unaccompanied on a flight from the U.S. to Russia.
Angry Russian officials are calling for a halt to all U.S. adoptions until the two countries could hammer out a new agreement that spelled out the conditions and obligations for such adoptions.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called the boy’s abrupt return “a monstrous deed.” The Russian president told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos in an exclusive interview that he had a “special concern” about the recent treatment of Russian children adopted by Americans.
Torry Hansen of Shelbyville, Tenn., put 7-year-old Artyem Saviliev — renamed Justin Artyem Hansen in the U.S. — on a plane to Moscow’s Domodedovo airport with a note in his pocket saying she ws returning him, that the boy had severe psychological problems and that the orphanage had lied about his condition.
“I no longer wish to parent this child,” the note read, calling the boy a liability.
“This child is mentally unstable.” Hansen wrote to the Russian Ministry of Education. “He is violent and has severe psychopathic issues/behaviours. I was lied to and misled by the Russian Orphanage workers and director regarding his mental stability and other issues.”
Adopted six months ago, the boy was traveling on an expired U.S. visa. He was taken to a hospital for a medical evaluation. Video footage showed Artyem looking bewildered as he is taken from the police station to the hospital by Russian social service workers.
“On every level putting a little kid on a plane and shipping them somewhere is horrific behavior. If you have a problem, you deal with the problem,” said Adam Pertman, executive of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. “It is certainly the equivalent of abandoning your child.”
The Bedford County sheriff had visited Hansen Thursday and was expected to talk with her again today.
Nancy Hansen, the boy’s grandmother, told The Associated Press that she and the boy flew to Washington and she put the child on the plane with the note from her daughter.
She told the AP that the child began hitting, kicking and spitting and making threats in January.
“He drew a picture of our house burning down and he’ll tell anybody that he’s going to burn our house down with us in it,” Hansen said. “It got to be where you feared for your safety. It was terrible.” Nancy Hansen said she and her daughter, a single mother, went to Russia together to adopt the boy, and she believes information about his behavioral problems was withheld from her daughter. “The Russian orphanage officials completed lied to her because they wanted to get rid of him,” Nancy Hansen said.
Artyem, who turns 8 next week, “was accompanied from his home in Tennessee to Washington by his American grandmother, who put him on a direct flight to Washington to Moscow,” U.S. embassy officials told ABC News.
His grandmother reportedly told him he would be happier in Russia before handing him over as an unaccompanied minor for his flight to Moscow.
A friend and neighbor of Torry Hansen, who identified himself only as “Mr. Austin” said the Hansens were a nice family and the boy had been causing problems, including setting fires and trying to burn the house down.