One more turn of the screw against individual freedoms in Russia. Russian deputies adopted a law on Tuesday, November 12, banning the promotion of a child-free lifestyle, against a backdrop of demographic crisis in the country amplified by the conflict in Ukraine. This text, voted unanimously and which must still be adopted by the upper house on November 20, is also fully in line with the ultraconservative turn of Russian power on social issues, taken under the leadership of Vladimir Putin since the large-scale assault on Ukraine in February 2022.
According to the law, individuals who engage in the promotion of a child-free lifestyle would risk a fine of 400,000 rubles (around 4,000 euros) and civil servants double that. For legal entities, the sanction could be increased to five million rubles (nearly 48,000 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. “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.
“Catastrophic”
But this law also has the major objective of responding to the significant crisis of Russian demographic decline which Vladimir Putin has never managed to remedy since his arrival in power a quarter of a century ago, despite the implementation of numerous policies natalists. In July, the Kremlin recognized a situation that was “catastrophic for the future of the nation”.
This demographic situation was exacerbated in the 1990s, due to the very low level of births in this period of social and economic crisis which followed the fall of the USSR. However, it is this very small generation which is old enough to have children, but which today has very few, which risks accelerating Russia’s decline. In 2023, the fertility rate in Russia was 1.41 children per woman of childbearing age, far from the population replacement rate estimated at 2.1 children per woman, according to estimates from the Russian Statistics Agency ( Rosstat), cited by the Russian economic daily RBC.
A significant element also aggravates the situation: the war in Ukraine. Because if Russia does not communicate about its military losses on the Ukrainian front, the conflict only accentuates this trend. The very numerous disappearances of young men contribute to an aging of the population, but also remove a whole part of the population most likely to have children.
Thus, according to Rosstat, only 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. Rosstat also forecasts that the Russian population will plunge by three million by 2030, or around 143 million inhabitants.
Adoption of Russian children
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 prohibited 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.