Anger over children 'confiscated' by the authorities |
06-04-2011 | |
by
Evgeniya Chaykovskaya
at 06/04/2011 17:53
Fears are growing that Russia’s children are being used as pawns in disputes between parents and the authorities. Each year 100,000 children are taken from their parents – in many cases due to unpaid utility bills. Human right activists say they receive thousands of complaints from parents whose children were taken away and who could be evicted out of their houses. Thousands of children are treated as leverage Up to 60,000 children are sent to orphanages every year by court decisions, family and children help hotline coordinator Marina Ozhegova told Versia.ru. And in only 3 per cent of the cases cruelty is the reason for the decision. The Kuznetsov family is a recent example. The father of five lost his job during the 2008 crisis, and his new employer pays him just a quarter of what he used to earn. While struggling to feed the family, the unpaid utility bill reached 200,000 roubles (about $6,500). Utilities staff complained to social workers, who then visited Kuznetsov household and labelled the family financially insolvent. The children were temporarily taken away. The family now needs to prove their ability to look after their own kids. Campaigners say this is just one of thousands of examples. The state needs to do more Human rights groups say taking the children away is not an answer to problems of unemployment and poverty. “There are irresponsible families, but the state is even more irresponsible,” said head of For Civil Rights committee Andrei Babushkin. “Residents of dying monogorods, people who do not know how to steal, who could not abandon their dying grandma, and spent all their money on her treatment, so that they do not have much food in their fridge, it is not their fault. The state has to look after them and not punish them,” he said. Political angle Some victims of the social services say they are targeted for their political views. A year ago in Dzerzhink, Nizhny Novgorod region, Sergei Pchelintsev saw his flat invaded by officials and a TV crew and his three children taken away. “They did not show any documents despite my repeated requests, and they were taking the children away despite their cries, pleas and tears,” Pchelintsev wrote in his blog. He did not have big utilities debts, the parents were not alcoholics, but the family was poor, earning 10-11,000 roubles a month (which is common in Russian provinces), and with left-wing political views. Pchelintsev claims the children were taken away after his chat with a policeman from anti-terrorist department, who told him he would have problems in the family if he did not stop his participation in rallies. Khimki forest activist Yevgeniya Chirikova was also threatened that her children would be taken away. She was accused of beating them up based on a letter from a “neighbour”. Children’s ombudsman Pavel Astakhov had to interfere and when the claims turned out to be false, promised that the children would not be disturbed. Taking away children is easy The vagueness of Russian family laws leaves them open to interpretation and makes taking away the children very easy. The law says parents could lose their children if they are not provided with “normal upbringing and development” – but this is never clearly defined. At the same time, orphanages are funded based on the number of children in the institution, so the more children there are in the orphanage, the more government funding they get. The state allocates between 100,000 and one million roubles ($3,500 – 35,000) per child, and there are doubts that the money actually reaches the children. At the same time the state provides 100-300,000 roubles per child for families who adopt. http://themoscownews.com/society/ |
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