Genoa, Italy
Italy and Belarus are in a diplomatic spat because an Italian couple refuses to return a 10-year-old Belarusian girl to her home country. The girl, known only as Maria, is one of many Belarusian orphans who spend their summers in Italian foster care. At the end of this summer, foster parents Maria and Alessandro Giusti put Maria into hiding, saying she had been raped at her orphanage and would not return. Belarusian officials say that if the girl is not handed over, all pending Italian adoptions of Belarusian children will be canceled and the summer foster program abolished.
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