Official Decision Not to Let Vika Maroz Go to Italy Reached :: Charter'97 :: News

Vika Maroz is not subject to international adoption, said the director of the National center of Adoption by Education Ministry Natallya Paspelava at a press-conference in Minsk on April 5.

N. Paspelava noted that the Hague Convention on Child’s Rights signed by Belarus in 2003 states that “a child integrated to a family on the territory of his citizenship and home country cannot be subject to international adoption”. “It is not a Belarusian law, but a norm of the international law,” Natallya Paspelava said. “We find is absolutely right. If a Belarusian family is selected for a child, he or she is defended, his/her interests are protected. He or she has a chance of family education”.

N. Paspelava noted that theoretically adoption of Vika Maroz by Alessandro Giusto and Maria Chiara Bornacin or by some other foreign family is possible in case the foster family of Vika would be broken. “But I do not think that would happen,” she stated, “They are professional houseparents, who work, who have a correct attitude towards both children”.

Commenting on the fact that before the scandal with Giusto - Bornacin family V. Maroz was separated from her brother for several years and lived in Vilejka orphanage, N. Paspelava noted that “the girl had peculiarities of psychophysical development, and needed assistance of experts.

In September 2006 Alessandro Giusto and Maria Chiara Bornacin refused to send the girl who had visited them several times back to Belarus. they claimed girl suffered from psychical and moral abuse in the orphanage. For 20 days the family was hiding Vika Maroz in a monastery on Northern Italy. On September 27 Italian police found the girl and she was returned to Minsk by a special flight on September 30. On October 30 the girl was given to the family of Alena and Syarhei Vasileuskis, where her elder brother Sasha was living already. On October 19 A. Vasileuskaya told to the BelaPAN that her family was not ready to adopt the girl.