Moscow:
Russian parliamentarians passed controversial legislation in its final third reading on Tuesday banning 'propaganda' about choosing not to have children. The latest measure targets what Moscow portrays as Western liberal ideas.
Faced with an aging population and low birth rates, Moscow is trying to reverse a demographic slump – accentuated by its military offensive against Ukraine – that threatens its economic future.
MPs in the Duma parliament unanimously voted in favor of the bill, which would apply to material online, in the media, in advertisements and in films that promote the “rejection of having children.”
The bill focuses on 'destructive content' that promotes a 'conscious' rejection of having children.
The bill's authors have said it will not be used as punishment for 'a personal choice or lifestyle', but only for promoting such a lifestyle, although it is unclear how this would be differentiated in practice.
Violations would be punishable with fines of up to 400,000 rubles ($4,000) for individuals and up to five million rubles for companies. The bill also includes a provision to deport foreigners found guilty of spreading prohibited information.
“This is a fateful law… Without children there will be no country. This ideology will lead people to stop giving birth to children,” State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin said ahead of the vote.
He also said the legislation is about “protecting citizens, first of all the generation growing up, from information spread through the media that negatively affects personality development.”
This is “so that new generations of our citizens grow up with an emphasis on traditional family values,” he said.
Nina Ostanina, Communist Party MP and head of the State Duma Committee on Family Policy, said the bill aims to “protect our youth from unnecessary ideologies.”
The legislation will now be debated by the upper house of parliament on November 20 before being presented to President Vladimir Putin, who is expected to sign it into law.
It is in addition to existing bans on 'propaganda' of LGBTQ relationships or changing gender.
ADOPTION PROHIBITION
The State Duma also unanimously passed legislation in its third reading banning foreigners living in countries that allow gender reassignment from adopting Russian children.
The bill is intended to prevent Russian children from legally changing their gender.
Moscow has long portrayed itself as a bulwark against liberal values, but that trend has accelerated dramatically since the Kremlin launched its Ukraine offensive, further severing ties with the West.
The bill would ban adoption by citizens of countries that allow “the change of sex through medical intervention, including the use of medications,” or allow individuals to change their gender on official identity documents.
Since 1993, foreigners have adopted 102,403 children from Russia, Volodin said, warning that “Western policies towards children are destructive.”
Russia previously banned all American adoptions in 2012 with a bill named after a Russian toddler who died of heatstroke in 2008 after his American adoptive father forgot him in a car.
Russia has been creating an inhospitable environment for LBGTQ people for years. In July 2023, it banned the “international LGBT movement” as extremist and made gender reassignment illegal.
Putin himself has repeatedly mocked people who have undergone gender reassignment, as well as LGBTQ people.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Our staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
