Regina doctor who lied to Ukrainian authorities on adoption papers can’t raise children in Canada, court rules
Regina doctor who lied to Ukrainian authorities on adoption papers can’t raise children in Canada, court rules
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Tristin Hopper | February 12, 2014 | Last Updated: Feb 12 9:43 PM ET
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Vinnitsa train station. In the summer of 2011, Dr. Svitlana Cheshenchuk flew to her hometown of Vinnitsa, Ukraine, where she has an apartment, and adopted two children, a brother and sister, then aged three and four respectively.
WikimediaVinnitsa train station. In the summer of 2011, Dr. Svitlana Cheshenchuk flew to her hometown of Vinnitsa, Ukraine, where she has an apartment, and adopted two children, a brother and sister, then aged three and four respectively.
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A Regina medical doctor has been barred from raising her newly adopted children in Canada after immigration officials ruled she unlawfully secured the children from a Ukrainian orphanage through an elaborate ruse.
“She is responsible for the position in which the children now find themselves,” reads a recent ruling by a Saskatchewan Federal Court upholding the decision of the Canadian Citizenship & Immigration Ministry, adding the unnamed children may be henceforth denied “a normal family life.”
The case concerns Svitlana Cheshenchuk, a Ukraine-born doctor, who came to Saskatchewan in 1998 and now has Canadian and Ukrainian citizenship.
In the summer of 2011, Dr. Cheshenchuk flew to her hometown of Vinnitsa, where she has an apartment, and adopted two children, a brother and sister, then aged three and four respectively.
The adoptions were not in accordance with Ukrainian law
But when she tried to bring the children back to Saskatchewan, a citizenship and immigration officer at the Canadian embassy in Kyiv uncovered a “serious irregularity” in their adoption papers. The official concluded the adoption order would have never have been approved if Ukrainian authorities had known Dr. Cheshenchuk intended to take the children abroad.
Ukrainian law is quite strict about allowing foreign adoptions. Foreign parents, even if they are dual citizens such as Dr. Cheshenchuk, can only adopt children older than five. Even then, officials are reluctant to allow adoption of children who are not disabled or form part of a group of four to five siblings.
An adoption fact sheet drafted by the Ukrainian embassy in Washington says it is “almost impossible” to adopt a healthy five- to six-year-old, or even a seven- to eight-year-old child with no siblings.
In what Canadian immigration officials would allege was a deliberate “misrepresentation,” Dr. Cheshenchuk applied for a domestic adoption. She did not mention her Canadian citizenship or her 13 years in Regina.
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