MOSCOW, December 18 - RAPSI. The State Duma Committee for Constitutional Legislation and Nation Building has supported an amendment on banning the adoption of Russian children by Americans in the so-called Dima Yakovlev laws, which was Russia's response to the Magnitsky Act adopted in the United States.

The amendment proposes banning the adoption of Russian children in the United States, closing children adoption agencies, as well as terminating the Russian-U.S. agreement on the adoption of under-aged, United Russia party member and coauthor of the amendments Yekaterina Lakhova told RIA Novosti on Monday.

State Duma deputies approved the bill, a response to the Magnitsky Act, in the first reading on December 14. The deputies plan to examine the law in its entirety until December 21; the law is to come into effect from 2013.

The bill covers U.S. citizens who violated the rights of Russians, committed crimes against Russians or are involved in their commitment. The document allows for the drafting of a list of Americans who are prohibited from entering Russia and also suspends the activity of legal entities, controlled by such U.S. citizens, in Russia.

December 6, the U.S. Senate approved the Magnitsky Act, which stipulates visa sanctions for Russian citizens who, according to the Senate, have been involved in human rights violations.

United Russia party members called the document "the Dima Yakovlev law" in memory of a two-year-old boy, who died in Virginia after his foster father left him in a closed car standing under the heat of the sun, and in the memory of all under-aged Russians who died and suffered from U.S. foster parents.