International Adoption Controversy Leads To Child Support Demand

Adoption is an opportunity that is not easy for many want-to-be parents to get through. Getting a child through adoption can be a difficult, taxing and emotional process, a process that doesn’t always end ideally. Often, a person hoping to become an adoptive parent doesn’t get that opportunity. But there are other cases when the adoption happens but doesn’t work out.

An out-of-state adoption case sparked national and international outrage in April 2010. A woman had gone through the process to adopt a boy from Russia. After getting the child, the adoptive parent decided that the situation wasn’t for her. She sent the young child back to Russia on a flight, all alone. But she still owes something to the child. She is being required to pay child support after the adoption agency filed a lawsuit against the woman.

Most child support cases involve two parents who have divorced, one fighting to gain more monthly support for their children and/or the other arguing that the child support request is too much. In this international situation, the child that the woman is being required to support is not biologically hers. The adoption agency, however, must feel that she made promises regarding caring for the child during the adoption process.

Currently, the child, an orphan, is in a group home in Russia with other kids in similar difficult situations. The child was 7 years old when his adoptive mother sent him from the U.S. back to Russia. She is being required to pay back child support for the months since she sent him away and will be required to continue paying until the child reaches the age of 18.

The exact amount that the woman will be required to pay for each month has not yet been determined.

Source: San Jose Mercury News, “Tenn. mom who sent Russian boy must pay support,” Kristin M. Hall, March 7, 2012