Childfree ideology will be banned in Russia

The Russian authorities intend to legally ban the childfree ideology. They want to ban childfree propaganda in media, on the Internet, in cinema and advertising.

Photo: Own work by Audry Aymar, CC BY-SA 4.0

The author of the initiative and member of the State Duma Committee on Education Elvira Aitkulova believes that there are a lot of communities on the Internet that promote the conscious refusal to have children. Such people, Aitkulova believes, show disrespect for motherhood, fatherhood and large families. The purpose of the bill is to protect the society against the popularization of such content on the Internet, in mass media, as well as in cinema and advertising.

Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko believes that Russia should take measures to outlaw the conscious decision not to have children (the childfree ideology). Matviyenko believes that childfree views are associated with the degeneration of feminism, which at its initial stage was based on the "good idea" of fighting for women's equality, but has "radicalized" in the West.

Such a measure will protect traditional family values. This is similar to the mechanism of protection from destructive information, the author of the bill, Elvira Aitkulova believes.

If the bill is adopted, Article 6.21 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation will be supplemented with clauses for the propaganda of childfree families. Such propaganda will be punished with fines as follows:

• from 200 to 400 thousand rubles for individuals.
• from 400 to 800 thousand rubles for officials.
• from 2 to 5 million rubles for legal entities.

The government commission on legislative activity supported the bill, but recommended refining the specific concept of "refusal to have children" in order to avoid situations when people consciously refuse to have children for religious, medical reasons, or in the case of rape.

According to Rosstat, 1.264 million newborns were born in Russia last year. This is the lowest figure since the crisis year of 1999, when the birth rate dropped to 1.214 million children, which was the lowest since the Great Patriotic War.