Russian deputies approved this Thursday (17), in the first round, legislation that prohibits the promotion of a life without children, in a context of demographic crisis that has worsened with the conflict in Ukraine.
The regulation was adopted unanimously, according to a live broadcast of the vote in the Duma, the lower house of the Russian Parliament. The project still needs to be voted on in second and third readings.
“A strong family was proclaimed a traditional value” in Russia in 2022, the authors of the text emphasize in an explanatory note.
Among those who signed the project are the speaker of the Federation Council (Upper House), Valentina Matvienko, and the speaker of the State Duma, Viacheslav Volodin.
“One of the threats to traditional values is the promotion in Russian society of the ideology of childlessness, which leads to the deterioration of social institutions (…) and creates circumstances for depopulation,” they wrote.
According to them, several online communities and groups promote this way of life and reprimand “those who perceive their need to be a mother or father.”
The authors therefore advocate the “creation of a defense mechanism for traditional values” and propose a ban on the promotion of child-free lifestyles on the Internet, in the media, in films and in advertisements.
According to Volodin, who presented the initiative at the end of September, an individual would face a fine of 400,000 rubles (around US$4,300 or R$24,400), an official would face double that and a legal entity would face a fine of five million rubles (US$51,000 or R$289,000).
“There should be no advertising that pressures women into making the decision to have a child. This is what happens in the United States and Europe,” Volodin said on Telegram after the vote.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has made the defense of so-called “traditional” values one of his policies, in opposition to what he denounces as Western “decadence”.
Since his arrival in the Kremlin in 2000, Putin has made it a priority to stop Russia’s demographic crisis, a legacy of the Soviet era, but has never succeeded.
