MOSCOW, December 19 - RAPSI. The State Duma has approved an amendment prohibiting Americans from adopting Russian children in the second reading.
The amendment proposes banning these adoptions, closing adoption agencies, and terminating the U.S.-Russian agreement on the adoption of underaged children.

The deputies approved the bill in response to the Magnitsky Act in the first reading on December 14.

The law will come into effect as of 2013.

The bill also includes measures against U.S. citizens who violated the rights of Russians, committed crimes against them, or were involved in such crimes.

The document also envisages the drafting of a list of U.S. citizens who will be prohibited from entering Russia, and suspends the activity of the legal entities controlled by these individuals in the country.

On 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 have called the document approved in response to the U.S. legislation the "Dima Yakovlev Law" in memory of a two-year-old boy who died in Virginia after his foster father left him in a locked car in the sun. They have also said that the document commemorates all underaged Russians who died or suffered as a result of the negligence of their U.S. foster parents.