In this issue, The Citizen concerns itself with adoption. This is a pertinent issue in post-Soviet Russia, in which social and economic disruption have left many children without families.

While most children are adopted by Russian nationals in the narrow swathe of the middle or even slimmer segment of the upper class who can afford a child, a large proportion are obtained by foreign citizens, mostly from the West.

As Irina Sandul´s article this week should make clear, adoption is a big business that draws in lots of money, and where there is money, there are those who will try to get at it by any means necessary. This is bad enough in other areas, but doubly pernicious when children - the least protected and most vulnerable members of any society - are involved. It is one thing to fork out a few hundred rubles to the traffic police, and another to shell out thousands of dollars to an "intermediary" at an adoption agency. The former is simply annoying and a reminder of the inefficiency of the system. The latter is making a quick buck from the well-being of children.

As in Latin America, another region in which the price for adopting a child far exceeds the average national income, the adoption process here serves to line the pockets of officials and plain thugs. Their concerns lie largely with their own wallets, not the fate of the children who, in an ideal world or even a somewhat more humane one, would be their chief concern.

At its ugliest, this can take the form of the literal buying and selling of human babies. This is not adoption - it is closer, in fact, to slavery. Moreover, it leads to the victory of the dollar over any concern of the possible compatibility of the child with his or her future parents - who often are not fit to raise children at all.

There are many children in Russia and elsewhere who could use a stable family and a set of identifiable, loving parents. We only hope, for their sake, that something is done to help correct this sorry state of affairs, and soon.