Concern over bill on “social fostering”
The Association of
Parents’ Committees of Russia asks the President to halt the passing of the
bill “On social fostering”
The Association of Parents’ Committees and Societies (ARKS),
which brings together 43 parents’ public organisations, has sent Vladimir Putin
an open letter. The letter’s authors
ask the head of state to prevent the State Duma from passing the bill “On the
modification of separate acts of the Russian Federation concerning the
realisation of social fostering and the activities of trusteeship and
guardianship bodies”, which has gone through its first reading.
ARKS fears that the innovation under discussion will lead to
the removal of children from “socially adequate parents without trial or investigation”. They offer as an example the situation in
Finland, where children are regularly taken from families. Recently, social services took away four
children from former Russian citizen Anastasia Zavgorodnyaya without a court
case. Representatives of parents’
organisations call this “an inhumane invasion of the family” and point out that
hundreds of thousands of people have come out against such practices. In Russia, pickets and protest meetings have
been going on for several months against “juvenile technologies” *, and more
than 140,000 letters of protest from citizens have been submitted to the office
of the President. A petition to the
head of state with a call to renounce “juvenile technologies” as phenomena
“alien, harmful and fatally dangerous to our state” has been signed by 142
figures of the scientific and cultural spheres.
ARKS representatives hope that Vladimir Putin will halt the
passing of the bil on social patronage, and propose the adoption of an
alternative concept, “the strengthening of the legal status of the family”, and
a corresponding bill aimed at the defence of right of parents to bring up their
children, the right of the child to a family life, and the independence of the
family.”
Contact: Anna Kislichenko,
telephone 8-915-213-09-80, website: http://arks.org.ru
* The reference is
to a legislative proposal to allow the authorities to remove ‘neglected
children’ from their family of origin into state care’.
