MOSCOW, December 29 - RAPSI. The Russian Foreign Ministry has indicated inadequate legal protection in the face of numerous abuse cases as one of the reasons why Americans were banned from adopting Russian children.

On Friday, President Vladimir Putin signed the controversial law prohibiting adoption of Russian children by Americans. It will come into effect on January 1, 2013.

The Foreign Ministry said citing the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children that every fourth international adoption in the United States ends in failure and results in psychological or physical damage to the child.

Moreover, if the media coverage does not include the information on the background of a deceased child, it is impossible to find out that the child had Russian roots as all adopted children become U.S. citizens upon their arrival in the United States.

Thus, the data on the Russian children who were killed by their U.S. foster parents (19 since 1996) is based solely on the proven cases that were broadly covered.

"In comparison, Italy and Spain have not had any egregious cases of abuse of adopted children, certainly no cases that ended in a child's death, despite the fact these countries are not far behind the United States in terms of adopting Russian children (in 2011, American, Italian and Spanish families adopted 965, 798 and 685 Russian children, respectively). The claim that Americans mostly adopt disabled Russian children (one propagated by the media) is groundless as well. According to various data, in 2011, there were from 44 to 89 disabled minors out of 965 Russian children adopted by Americans," the document reads.

The ministry also stressed that according to Childhelp an average of five children die in the United States from abuse daily.

Human rights activists believe that in 50-60 percent of cases when children are killed by adults, the real reason for their death is concealed. The National Coalition to End Child Abuse Deaths (NCECAD) has calculated that since 2001 the number of children who died of abuse in the United States was three times higher than the number of U.S. soldiers who died in conflict zones in the same period.

The Foreign Ministry also pointed out that the United States (along with Somali and South Sudan) is not a party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child on the pretext that this universal treaty undermines the traditions of U.S. legislation and upbringing.