First graders take part in a ceremony to mark the start of the school year in Podolsk, Moscow region, in September 2021. Photo: EPA-EFE/MAXIM SHIPENKOV
Russia’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, has approved the first reading of a bill banning “propaganda of the child-free movement”, Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin announced on Thursday.
The bill, which if it becomes law, would introduce fines of up to 400,000 rubles (€4,000) for individuals found guilty of spreading what the authorities deem to be “child-free propaganda” — urging people not to have children — while public officials could be fined as much as 800,000 rubles (€8,000) and companies up to 5 million rubles (€50,000).
A total of 388 deputies voted in favour of the bill, Volodin said. No deputies voted against or abstained, according to Russian business daily RBC.
Russia was continuing to create “a legal framework for the protection of children, the family and traditional values”, Volodin wrote, stressing the importance of “protecting people, especially the younger generation” from being indoctrinated with “child-free ideology” online, in the media, as well as in films and advertising.
Volodin stressed that while the government was seeking to ban “child-free propaganda”, it was ultimately “up to women” to decide whether or not they wanted to have children. “But there should be no propaganda putting pressure on women … which is what is happening now in the US and Europe,” Volodin added.
Senate Speaker Valentina Matviyenko voiced her support for a ban on “child-free propaganda” in September when she called in an interview for the “child-free movement” to be “banned by law”.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov also backed a ban in September, saying that raising the birth rate was one of the Russian government’s “key priorities” and that everything standing its way “should, of course, disappear from our lives”.
