We
have this dramatic feast of a movie this holiday season, Les Miserables, based
on Victor Hugo’s grand tragic novel (in 365 chapters), and a principal focus of
that extraordinary tale of redemption is how ex-con Jean Valjean, a victim of
disproportionate punishment and abuse, resists rage and adopts the orphan, Cosette,
when her mother Fantine dies, and raises her as his own with love, kindness and
at great risk and sacrifice.
Jean Valjean saved Cosette
from the Thenardiers, a cruel corrupt couple, who forced Fantine’s illegitimate
daughter, Cosette, to work at their inn while treating their own daughters,
Eponine and Azelma, so kindly.
When we walk from the
darkened theater, we may overlook how little has changed from this artistic
recounting of real historic suffering to the present day.
There has been a recent
story about adoption and children that makes this crystal clear.
Russia has put a stop
to American adoptions of Russian Children.
The media, with rare exception, has covered this as if it is only a
reprisal for America criticizing Russia’s human rights violations. Citizens are screaming bloody murder, how
could Russia do that to the children we would adopt? But it’s more complicated than that. It is more like how could we do what we have
to the children from Russia adopted by Americans?
Three years ago, Dmitri
Yakovlev, a 21-month toddler, adopted from Russia, was left in a parked car for
nine hours, and Dmitri died of heatstroke; the adopted parent responsible,
Miles Harrison, was acquitted of involuntary manslaughter. A Russian spokesperson reportedly said, “When
we give our children to the West and they die, for some reason the West always
tells us it was just an accident.”
Two years ago, there
was a 7 year old boy, Artyom, adopted from Russia, renamed Justin, who was put
on a plane from Washington to Moscow, with a note by his adopted mother, Torry
Ann Hansen, from Shelbyville, Tennessee, that said, “After giving my best to
this child, I am sorry to say that for the safety of my family, friends and
myself, I no longer wish to parent this child.”
Ms. Hansen paid someone $200 in Moscow to drop the child off at the
Education Ministry. Artyom told Russian
authorities that Ms. Hansen was “bad,” pulled his hair, and that he had
cried. Russia thought then to suspend
all adoptions of Russian children by Americans.
This past summer, a
Wisconsin couple, Martin and Kathleen O’Brien, who had four biological children
and six adopted children - three from Russia - were charged with child abuse. The three children were beaten, stabbed,
kicked in the groin, slapped and doused with pepper spray. The O’Briens made the adopted children stand
naked on the back porch while the biological family ate dinner. The parents made fun of them and said they
should go back to Russia. A Russian
television reporter asked, “why American families with children of their own
adopt Russian children and then mistreat them?”
Over the years, since
1991, more than 50,000 Russian children have been adopted by United States
citizens. Nineteen of them have died in
recent years.
I know families that
have adopted children from Russia who have raised and cared for them as did
Jean Valjean for Cosette – with loving kindness. But we must admit there are also modern day
couples like the Thenardiers who abuse children.
There’s a broader
context for this abuse that we must consider – that Americans are not just
abusive of adopted children; they are also terribly abusive of their own biological
children.
This is no recent occurrence and, for good or
bad, we have some statistics on what the states are suffering in terms of child
abuse and neglect, defined, at federal law, in the Child Abuse Prevention and
Treatment Act, as “any recent act or failure on the part of a parent or
caretaker which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual
abuse or exploitation; or an act or failure to act, which presents an imminent
risk of serious harm.”
In 2011 there were 2
million reports of maltreatment of children, prompting a child services agency
response and a disposition. In the
entire population of children, there were 9.1 victims per 1,000 children in the
population. Children in their first year
of birth were victimized the worst at the rate of 21 children per 1,000
children in the same age group. Slightly
more abuse was suffered by girls. More
than 40% of the victims were white and the remainder split between Black and
Hispanic. More than 75% suffered from
neglect, 15% from physical abuse, 10 percent from sexual abuse. In 2011, there were 1, 545 deaths of
children. 80% of the deaths were
children younger than 4 years old.
Four-fifths of these deaths were caused by one or more parents.
Upton Sinclair, a
muckracker who, in his own right, forced society to reflect upon its harmful
excesses, described Les Miserables as a necessary book “so long as ignorance
and misery remain on earth.” He thought
that there was something we could learn from such mirrors of our life so long as
we witness “the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night” and so
long as “social asphyxia shall be possible.”
A resolution we may
wish to renew is to save our children – all our children – in this New Year!
