Thread: Slavic community questions action in child welfare case

Slavic community questionsOregon action in child welfare case
by Michelle ColeFriday July 31, 2009, 8:14 PM

Oleksandr KozlovSALEM -- Twice this week a peaceful crowd gathered inside the Oregon state Capitol to sing sweetly pitched Russian hymns that reverberated through the rotunda. The audience they hoped to reach was the governor and the Department of Human Services.

The Ukrainian immigrants and followers of the Slavic Baptist church have been pulled into a Salem child abuse case that has left their community in shock and unsure about how their culture and evangelical religion intersects with state child protection laws.

Church leaders and relatives have repeatedly pressed the governor and other state officials to reunite a Slavic Baptist family with seven children -- or at least define the boundary between appropriate punishment and abuse.

"It's a new culture for us. We need to be explained how we can grow our kids here," says Michael Arnautov, administrator at the First Slavic Baptist Church in south Salem.

The Capitol protests have focused on Oleksandr Kozlov, 41, and Lyudmila Kozlova, 39, who face multiple charges of abuse and mistreatment.

On July 20, the couple's three oldest children ran away and dialed 9-1-1 from a local shopping center. The three teens, ages 15, 14 and 13, told police their parents had been spanking them with belts, sticks and wire since the family arrived in the United States from the Ukraine in 2003. Police and child welfare caseworkers went to the home later that evening and took the remaining children. The other children are 11, 10, 9 and a 6-day-old breast-feeding infant.

Both parents have been in jail since July 21 and the children are living together in a state foster home.

As customary in such cases, neither child welfare authorities nor the county district attorney's office will talk about specifics while the investigation continues.

Relatives and friends visited the governor's office three times this week asking to meet with Gov. Ted Kulongoski. They were turned away after being told the governor couldn't help them.

Church friends say the couples' home was always clean and the children were well-dressed, well-fed and showed no signs of bruising or injury at a recent summer camp.

Many were aware, however, that Kozlova had become angry because her daughters cut their hair. The parents subscribe to a strict belief that the Bible directs females to keep their hair long. Married women wear hair coverings.

Kozlova's brother-in-law, Pavlo Sakaly, said the mother had been battling depression and her daughters' defiance pushed her over the edge. She hit them with a telephone cord and left a mark.

Neither Sakaly nor others from the church condone her actions. But they say they don't understand why a nursing mother and baby are separated. And they are asking the state to show mercy.

"It was too much. It was over the limit," Arnautov says. "She is really sorry for what she did."

Word of the couple's arrest spread quickly throughout the state.

The evangelical Slavic community in Salem numbers about 3,000 and is close-knit. There also are an estimated 100,000 Russian-speaking immigrants or refugees in the Portland metro area, says Yelena Hansen, program director for Russian Oregon Social Services. The number includes many from Ukraine.

"Physical punishment is very common in Russia or the Ukraine," she says. "It was just part of parenting, and the state didn't consider it a crime because it was up to parents to raise their children."

But what was accepted practice there is not accepted here, Hansen says, adding that domestic violence and child abuse are real problems within the community, particularly among the more conservative faiths.

"I tell them: 'You came here because of religious persecution. You have the freedom to pursue your beliefs. You have to follow American laws."

Courtland Geyer, who leads the child abuse team in the Marion County District Attorney's office, says the law allows a parent or guardian to use "reasonable physical discipline."

"The question of what is reasonable is a community standard," Geyer says. "I've typically found in 14-plus years prosecuting child abuse cases here in Marion County that abuse leaving lasting marks is over the line, whether it's a spanking on the buttocks with the hand that happened to leave bruises, or being struck with an object anywhere on the body."

The Oregon Department of Human Services plans to convene its Refugee Child Welfare Advisory Committee early next week to look closely at the Salem case. Gloria Anderson, diversity and international affairs manager for the department, said the committee was created following the influx of Southeast Asian families who arrived in Oregon in the late 1970s.

Refugee families often require greater sensitivity, Anderson says. "They have many different values, traditions and beliefs that are very different than western culture. Many don't even recognize why we'd be at the door or why we are interfering with their parenting practices."

Arnautov arrived in the United States in 1992 and today has three sons and six daughters. "I am not going to break the law," he says, but we need to "discipline our kids because we want them to be good society members."

--Michelle Cole; michellecole@news.oregonian.com


http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/inde ... tions.html

Refugee families often require greater sensitivity, Anderson says. "They have many different values, traditions and beliefs that are very different than western culture. Many don't even recognize why we'd be at the door or why we are interfering with their parenting practices."

The above statement pretty much cements the negative affects of allowing millions of people from various countries and cultures to immigrate to the US (legally and illegally) based on the premise that they are here simply because they wish to live their version of the American Dream.

Additionally, allowing perpetual, massive illegal immigration to this country and rewarding them with undeserved citizenship has and will only continue to serve as the catalyst of the dumbing down, and desecretion of our once great nation.

There are millions of "immigrants" (both legal and illegal) just like this family who have come here illegalaly and despite being here for decades still have no clue what it means to be an American. The majority do not speak English, and are not capable of learning English or assimilating into American life and culture. Even worse, other than obtaining the material wealth that they believe they are entitled to once they reach America's soil, they have no interest in adapting anything American. They will only continue to select bits and pieces of America that will enable them to abuse our social systems and obtain all of the tax dollars of Americans that will allow them to start a business or survive on a lifetime of welfare and other "freebies". They also receive government loans and funding that will assist them to prosper economically. Yet Americans are legally forced to live by a different set of rules and standards while paving the road to prosperity of millions of immigrants and illegal aliens.

Additionally, most come from 3rd world populations that are only accustomed to barbaric and violent cultures. Thus, when you don't know any better, you can't do any better.

Arnautov arrived in the United States in 1992 and today has three sons and six daughters. '

Over the years, I'm sure those 9 anchors have cost the US taxpayers a truck load of welfare, food stamps and educational costs. Why is it that only the greedy, corrupt politicians have no problem sending Americans to foreign countries to guard their borders and protect their citizens, yet Americans are being murdered daily at the hands of illegal aliens in America because our borders remain a revolving wide open door to anyone who has the ability to walk across them?

It is way past time to close the borders and blow out the lamp.

So now we have the Slavic community. So we as a country,which is supose to be united,is divided up into various and different communities! The black communitty,the hispanic community,the white community,the slavic community,the cuban community,the chinese community. These are not my words but words of others,such as in the press or even those organizations that represent those different peoples. Why don't we just have a different state in the United States of America for each group of these newly arriving immigrants(and in some cases illegals). That way we could have different sets of laws and cultures and religious practices set up for them.

Where am I going with this? What are your thoughts out there?

Two couples...16 children...I can barely afford to do the right things for my two boys. Of course, other than unemployment, I have never gotten any social services.