To deal with the demographic crisis the country is going through, Russian deputies unanimously adopted a law on Tuesday prohibiting the promotion of a child-free lifestyle.
Russian deputies adopted a law on Tuesday, November 12 banning the promotion of a child-free lifestyle, against a backdrop of the demographic crisis in Russia amplified by the conflict in Ukraine and the Kremlin's defense of “traditional values”.
This text, voted unanimously and which must still be adopted by the upper house on November 20, is part of the ultraconservative turn of Russian power on social issues, taken under the leadership of Vladimir Putin since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
A significant demographic decline in Russia
According to the law, individuals who promote a child-free lifestyle would risk around 4,000 euros and civil servants double that. For legal entities, the penalty could be increased to 47,000 euros.
Political and religious leaders see in the defense of so-called “traditional” values an extension of Russia's struggle against the West, accused of moral “decadence”. The rights of the LGBT community have notably been reduced to nothing.
The law also aims to respond to the significant Russian demographic decline which Vladimir Putin has never managed to remedy since he came to power a quarter of a century ago.
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“A strong family has been proclaimed as a traditional value” in Russia in 2022, underline the authors of the text in an explanatory note. However, “one of the threats to traditional values is the promotion in Russian society of the 'childless' ideology, which leads to a degradation of social institutions (…) and creates circumstances for depopulation” , they say.
In the crosshairs of the promoters of the law, communities and groups which would expose themselves to heavy fines for doing what is described as the promotion of a “Childfree” lifestyle and which would have an aggressive attitude towards “those who carry out their need to be a mother or father”, whether on the internet, in the media and books, in films or in advertisements.
The vote on the law resonates as an acknowledgment of the failure of the authorities to remedy Russia's deep demographic crisis, inherited from the Soviet era, but which the authorities have never managed to stem despite pro-natalist measures. In July, the Kremlin recognized a situation that was “catastrophic for the future of the nation”.
In 2023, the fertility rate in Russia was 1.41 children per woman of childbearing age, far from the population replacement rate, according to estimates from the Russian statistics agency (Rosstat).
Russia does not communicate on its military losses on the Ukrainian front, but the conflict only accentuates this trend. According to Rosstat, 920,200 children were born in Russia between January and September 2024, a decrease of 3.4% compared to the same period of the previous year. According to Russian media, this is the worst toll since the end of the 1990s.
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As part of this policy of defending traditional values, the Supreme Court has already banned the “international LGBT+ movement”, described as “extremist”. This vague wording opens the door to heavy prison sentences for those accused of adhering to it.
MPs also voted on Tuesday for a law preventing the adoption of Russian children by nationals of countries authorizing gender transition and change of marital status, now banned in Russia.
“In these countries, the situation is absolutely unacceptable for our children to be sent there,” commented the Speaker of Parliament Vyacheslav Volodin, specifying that this had affected seven children in 2023. “Today's decision will lead to this that all our children are adopted in their own country,” he said.
Excluding countries that allow gender transition amounts to excluding “NATO countries”, where this is generally permitted, the MEPs note in their explanatory text.
Since 2013, the country has already banned adoption by foreign homosexual couples or unmarried nationals from countries where same-sex union is legal.
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