Against the backdrop of a long-standing Russian demographic crisis, where the population is shrinking and ageing, Vladimir Putin’s solution is to push for the return to what the Kremlin calls “traditional Russian values” – encouraging women to have large families.
A new law against “child-free propaganda”, which is set to criminalise the spread of information advocating for not having children, has sailed through the lower house of the Russian parliament.
As the meaning of “propaganda” remains vague, the law could bar advertisers, film and TV producers, bloggers and writers from presenting childless people as satisfied or large families as miserable, according to Russian rights groups and activists.
Indeed, a Russian reality TV show, once called “Pregnant at 16”, now named “Mama at 16”, used to show characters broaching the topic of abortion, the Washington Post reported.
Now, such a sentiment is not only disapproved of in Russia, but will also soon be illegal.
Putin has said that Russia’s demographic crisis “haunts” him and frames it as a critical national security problem, as the prospect of long-term population decline risks commensurate loss of Russian power.
The ban on child-free propaganda, which analysts are certain will pass, is part of a broad campaign by Russian authorities to pressure women into giving birth to multiple children. Billboards advertise hotlines for people with fears or questions about pregnancy, staffed by anti-abortion advocates.
Daria Serenko, co-founder of the Feminist Anti-War Resistance movement, who has left Russia, said it was a warning to women that their bodies, minds and actions were under the control of the state.
“This is a situation where the state wants to have monopoly on your body, on your voice, on your private life, on everything,” she told the Washington Post.
“There is silence,” she added. “This is taboo. Women do not talk about it.”
As the prospect of similar laws and abortion multiply, women are not willing to defend their rights through fear of arrest. She said: “They are afraid. Women do not want to go to court because they know very well what the consequences will be.”
According to the Russian rights group First Department, the ban could punish women who even post online about the hardships they experience as mothers. Contraception companies could also face advertising restrictions, it warned.
“It will be impossible to say or write anything that is aimed at creating a ‘positive image of childlessness and a conscious desire not to have children,’” the group wrote in a legal analysis of the bill.
“The ban on ‘child-free propaganda’ threatens not only those who protect the rights of women and girls … but everyone. If the bill is adopted in its current form, the phrase ‘How can you give birth when there is such poverty in Russia?’ will be punishable.”
When the bill passed its first reading in parliament, one of the largest motherhood support groups on VKontakte, Russia’s version of Facebook, immediately disbanded. It had more than 148,000 members and was a platform for mothers to share their problems, fears and regrets, such as high costs, lack of freedom and expectations to do all the housework, without shame or fear of judgement.
Independent Russian demographer Alexander Raksha has estimated that Russian deaths would outnumber births by 608,000 this year, with an overall population decline of around 550,000 after immigration of some 60,000. In September, Russia’s statistical agency reported that the number of births for the first half of the year plunged to 599,600, the lowest since 1999.
The population decline “is catastrophic for the future of the nation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in July. Russian ministers have called on women to start families at the age of 18, while others have condemned women who have pursued higher education before giving birth.
Putin has called for the reviving of “wonderful traditions” of the past, when mothers had seven to eight children.