Love, Family, Demographics & Adoption.

[TsarSamuil]

Father of Orphans (RT Documentary)

RT
Sep 8, 2013

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7wngV04O88

He dreams of Russia and a world without orphans. He has adopted more than 30 children himself and, accompanied by his adoptive sons, Pastor Gennady cycles across Russia to carry his message that everyone who can adopt orphans should.

[TsarSamuil]

Save our souls, Mama!

RTDocumentaries
Nov 13, 2013

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYz4lJxWwfk

Alyona felt unfulfilled with her respectable city job, so she dropped everything to live in a rural village community which had been established for abandoned children. How does the village purport to save children's souls? Can it save hers?

[TsarSamuil]

INFOGRAPHIC,
en.ria.ru/images/15843/88/158438828.jpg

Russia Bans Advertising for Abortion, Traditional Healing.

MOSCOW, November 15 (RIA Novosti) – Russian lawmakers on Friday approved a government bill banning advertising for abortions and traditional healers.

The bill, which was approved in its third and final reading by the lower house of parliament, marks the latest effort at restricting access to abortion as Russia battles to boost stagnant birth rates.

The legislation, which will come into force once the upper house of parliament and President Vladimir Putin sign off on it, also addresses other areas of the country’s health system, although what their ultimate impact will be is far from clear.

One provision raises the age at which minors do not need require parental consent for medical examinations from 14 to 15. The age at which parent’s consent is needed for treatment for drug dependency will be raised from 16 to 18.

The law will also ban the producers and distributors of pharmaceutical goods from encouraging physicians to prescribe specific drugs in exchange for gifts and financial inducements.

Fines for practitioners of illegal forms of traditional healing will range from 2,000 to 4,000 rubles ($60-$120).

Abortion was a common method of birth control in the Soviet era and Russia still had the highest number of abortions per woman of childbearing age in the world in 2004, according to UN data.

A law passed in 2011 made abortion legal only up until the 12th week of pregnancy. Some exceptions for termination up to the 22nd week of pregnancy are still permitted in the event medical complications or rape.

[TsarSamuil]

Bulgaria Saw EU's Largest Negative Population Growth in 2012.

Politics » BULGARIA IN EU | November 20, 2013, Wednesday // 15:44

Bulgaria registered EU’s largest negative population growth in 2012 (-5.5‰), according to Eurostat.

The Balkan country was followed by Latvia (-4.5‰), Hungary (-3.9‰) and Lithuania (-3.5‰).

In 2012, 5.2 million babies were born in the EU28. The crude birth rate was 10.4 per 1,000 inhabitants, stable compared with 2011. There were five million deaths registered in the EU28 in 2012. The crude death rate was 9.9 per 1,000 inhabitants, compared with 9.6‰ in 2011.

The highest natural growth of the population (the difference between live births and deaths per 1,000 inhabitants) was registered in Ireland (+9.5‰), followed by Cyprus (+5.2‰), Luxembourg (+4‰), France and the United Kingdom (both +3.8‰).

In 2012, around 80% of the increase in the EU28 population came from migration. In relative terms, Luxembourg (+18.9‰), Malta (+7.4‰), Italy (+6.2‰), Sweden (+5.4‰) and Austria (+5.2‰) had the largest net inflows, while Ireland (-7.6‰), Lithuania (-7.1‰), Latvia (-5.8‰), Estonia (-5.7‰), Greece (-4‰), Portugal (-3.6‰) and Spain (-3.5‰) recorded the highest net outflows.

On 1 January 2013, the population of the bloc was estimated at 505.7 million, compared with 504.6 million on 1 January 2012. It grew by 1.1 million in 2012 (+2.2 per 1,000 inhabitants) due to a natural increase of 0.2 million in the population and net migration of 0.9 million.

[TsarSamuil]

Slovenia's newborns down last year.

English.news.cn 2014-01-05 08:23:33

LJUBLJANA, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) -- The number of Slovenian newborns in 2013 decreased again as compared with the previous year, according to a preliminary statistics by the National Public Health Institute on Saturday.

The number of deliveries in Slovenian maternity hospitals decreased by four percent to 20,634 in 2013, which is the first drop below 21,000 since 2008.

In 2012, 21,938 children were born in Slovenia, which is only nine fewer than that of 2011.

With a population of 2.058 million by 2012, the number of newborns in this tiny Balkan country had been increasing for years until 2010 to 22,002 deliveries.

[TsarSamuil]

More Russians Support Ban on US Adoptions – Poll.

MOSCOW, February 4 (RIA Novosti) – A survey released Tuesday by a state-run pollster has shown that almost two-thirds of Russians, or 64 percent, support a law banning adoptions by families in the United States.

While 52 percent of Russians believe the legislation was helpful to the country’s orphans, only 20 percent of respondents in the VTsIOM survey said they opposed the law.

The “Dima Yakovlev Law” banning US adoptions went into effect last January and was named after a 21-month-old Russian boy who died of heatstroke in July 2008 after his American adoptive father left him in the back seat of his car for nine hours.

Lurid descriptions of alleged maltreatment of adoptees by US parents have featured frequently in reports on Russian television, helping boost popular support for a law that sparked an outcry among people who condemned the law for potentially denying thousands of children the chance of finding a family.

Some 27 percent of those supporting the law said “the United States humiliated our children,” while 26 percent said Russian children should stay in the country.

Another 19 percent of respondents in the poll, which surveyed 1,600 people in 130 towns and cities, said Russian children would be unsafe in the United States.

Approval for the adoption ban has risen since the same period last, when it stood at 54 percent.

The pollster said one year after approval of the law, the percentage of Russians familiar with the legislation had fallen from 85 percent to 78 percent, while 21 percent of respondents said they had no idea about it.

VTsIOM said the statistical margin of error in its survey did not exceed 3.4 percent.

A similar poll conducted by Russia's independent Levada Center late last month said support for the Dima Yakovlev law grew by 11 percent within one year to 32 percent.

In December, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev praised the law, claiming it had prompted more Russians to adopt, even though 95 children affected by the legislation remain without a family.

The government has undertaken an advertising campaign to promote domestic adoption that aims to quell fears of the expense of money and time that the process is generally assumed to entail.

The number of those awaiting adoption now stands at about 109,000 children, according to Education Ministry data.

[TsarSamuil]

New Family Code to protect traditional family, religious values – key lawmaker.

RT.com
March 04, 2014 13:41

The head of the lower house committee for family issues has described a new set of legislative amendments protecting the values shared by basic religions, and inspiring young people to choose marriage over cohabitation.

MP Yelena Mizulina of the center-left Fair Russia party said that she opposed the complete rewriting of family laws, but urged changes in the existing ones so that a new Family Code matched modern reality.

The amendments will include a law protecting children against unwanted information. Mizulina said that when the current Family Code was adopted in 1995 lawmakers could not foresee shifts in information, in particular the development of the internet. Nevertheless, she said, the virtual world must live by the law, just like the real world.

Other possible changes could include outlining priorities in favor of traditional families and traditional family values. These include the concepts that have been supporting the Russian nation for over a thousand years – the union between a man and a woman, several children in a family, families uniting several generations and the deep connection between these generations.

Mizulina emphasized that the current Family Code lacked a definition of the traditional family and this differed Russia from many foreign countries where such a definition existed. The lawmaker also noted that the traditional family is strongly connected with traditional religions and that a family with many children is considered a basic value and merit in the most popular religions in the Russian Federation - Orthodox Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

“One should not forget that we all descend from 70-years of atheism. Everyone understands what a Soviet family is. But a traditional family is a tribute to the previous stage of Russian history which had religious culture as a foundation of society,” Mizulina told the Izvestia daily.The social demand for traditional family only appeared in Russia five years ago and though there is much public debate about the issue, she was sure that the demand for traditional religious values comes from the majority of citizens.

Other major issues are the inflated importance of the state social services and their priority over biological parents and the lack of equal protection for all sides, including children, in cases of divorce.

Yelena Mizulina also promised to address the issue in which cohabitation is often more attractive for young couples than marriage. For example, the money allowance to single mothers is currently five or six times higher than the state subsidies for families with many children and some people choose cohabitation for simple financial reasons. The lawmaker called such a situation “a sort of a crime against the family institution, but not in the legal, but rather in the historical sense.”

Mizulina said a team of experts are preparing amendments to the family laws and this work will be finished this month. However, the lawmaker did not give any forecasts on when any new bills will be submitted to parliament.

[TsarSamuil]

Moscow Demands Data on Trafficking of Russian Children in US.

MOSCOW, March 27 (RIA Novosti) – Russia is demanding that the US authorities thoroughly investigate the reported instances of human trafficking of adopted Russian children in the United States, the Foreign Ministry said Thursday.

The ministry’s commissioner on human rights, Konstantin Dolgov, said in a statement that Washington had so far refused to provide Moscow with information about the probe on the trade of Russian adoptees in the US through underground networks on the Internet.

Reuters and NBC revealed the existence in September of an online market in which parents were handing over their unwanted adopted children to strangers they had met in Yahoo forums or via Facebook. Some reportedly suffered sexual abuse.

“We demand that the US side take decisive and efficient measures aimed at investigating the violations of rights of Russian children adopted by US citizens and ‘traded’ through Internet-exchanges,” Dolgov said.

[TsarSamuil]

Russia: Activists rally against abortion in Moscow.

RuptlyTV
Jun 1, 2014

www.youtube.com/watch?v=g38ns80Shj8

Orthodox Christians and anti-abortion activists held a rally on Sunday on Lermontov square in Moscow. The rally was organised by the group "For - a ban on abortion!", coinciding with Children's Day which is celebrated in Russia on June 1.

Earlier this week the same group claimed to have collected 100,000 signatures on a petition to have abortion criminalised. Abortion was first legalised by the Soviet Union in 1920.

[TsarSamuil]

Russian boy’s death in Italy calls for psych tests for foreign adopters - MP.

RT.com
July 21, 2014 13:17

A senior MP has suggested all foreigners who want to adopt Russian children must be tested in Russia. The opinion was voiced after the death of a 5-year old boy in Italy, allegedly at the hand of his mentally ill adoptive father.

Deputy Head of the State Duma Committee for Women, Children and Family, Olga Batalina said a court can order additional checks on foreign citizens who want to adopt Russian children, but this only happens if officials discover some problems with the documents issued abroad.

In Russia, the final decision on adoption by a foreigner is taken by the top court of the region where the orphan lives.

“But I think we can discuss the suggestion to make would-be adoptive parents undergo some of the tests in Russia from the very beginning. This can include the psychological tests and expert conclusions of certain medical specialists,” the RIA Novosti news agency quoted Batalina as saying on Monday.

The authorities could order all future adoptive parents to take part in special courses on parenthood in Russia. “Conversations with Russian teachers, psychologists, experts in children’s upbringing could give us a better understanding if these people are ready to take a Russian child into their families,” the lawmaker said.

A similar idea was suggested a short time ago by presidential plenipotentiary for children’s rights Pavel Astakhov.

Last week a 5-year old Russian boy was killed in Italy, allegedly by his 47-year old adoptive Italian father, who reportedly suffers from a mental condition. The man was detained and local police say he apparently had not taken his medication for several days before strangling the child with a pillow.

On Sunday legal authorities in Russia’s Far Eastern Amur region opened a criminal case against local officials concerning negligence in processing the adoption papers in 2012.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has written to the Italian Committee for International Adoptions demanding a fast and thorough probe into the details of the tragedy.


Maxim Maravalle (A screenshot from iltempo.it)

[TsarSamuil]

Russia’s Constitutional Court backs ban on ‘gay propaganda to minors’

RT.com
September 25, 2014 15:37

The Constitutional Court of Russia has acknowledged the ban of homosexual propaganda among the under age as lawful and dismissed a complaint by well-known LGBT activists.

The ruling was made in response to a complaint lodged by activists Nikolay Alekseev, Yaroslav Evtushenko and Dmitry Isakov. They tried to dispute the law section of Russia’s administrative code that describes how the law defines “propaganda of non-conventional sexual relationships to minors.”

The activists claimed this law section undermines their constitutional right of freedom of speech and discriminates against them. The law prohibits the dissemination of information about non-traditional sexual relationships that could spark interest from young people under the age of 18.

The Constitutional Court said that the law was aimed at “saving a child from the information impact, which could push him to nonconventional sexual relationships, which in their turn prevent from building a family, as it is traditionally understood in Russia.”

The court also ruled that the ban on propagandizing non-conventional sexual relationships is not a ban or censure of homosexuality itself. “They don’t require an automatic ban of promotion of any information concerning unconventional sexual relations,” the court’s statement said.

Previously the complainants had been found guilty of disseminating propaganda of unconventional sexual relations to minors. Each was fined 4,000 rubles ($100).

Alekseev and Evtushenko were held to account in December 2013 for taking part in a picket in front of a children’s library in a northern Russian city of Arkhangelsk. The poster read “There is no gay propaganda.” In Kazan in January, Isakov held a similar poster in a one-person protest.

The court said it has dismissed Alekseev’s arguments that “his actions were not propaganda, but were aimed at spreading objective information, which cannot inflict harm to health, moral or spiritual development of minors.” Alekseev’s claim was “contradicted by the materials in the case,” the court said. Similar statements were made regarding Evtushenko’s and Isakov’s cases.

Constitutional Court judge Nikolay Bondar told Rossiyskaya Gazeta: “Minors must not be involved in corresponding events, such as rallies or discussions, and the information promoted must not be aimed at them.” He added: “The practices of some European countries, which are connected with the deformation of traditional values of family and marriage, can’t be an example for us.”

The law on “gay propaganda to minors” came into force on June 30, 2013. Fines for breaking the law are 4-5,000 rubles ($100-130) for private citizens and 40-50,000 rubles ($1,000-1,300) for civil servants. Propaganda via the media or the Internet by legal entities raises the fine to 1 million rubles ($26,000).

[TsarSamuil]

Polish 2013 emigration close to record high.

theNews.pl
25.09.2014 07:15

Over two million left Poland to work or study abroad in 2013, close to record numbers leaving the country in 2007.

According to data released by the Central Statistical office (GUS) 2.2 million Poles lived for more than three months abroad last year, higher than the previous year and only marginally below the record 2.3 million noted in 2007. Although Poland’s population is theoretically 38.4 million, if Poles not living in the country are factored in then according to the EU's Eurostat statistical service, the population is now just 36.5 million and is expected to fall further in future due to a low birth rate.

The United Kingdom remains the principle destination for recent Polish emigrants, with almost 650,000 living there in 2013, while Germany is now the second most popular country with 560,000 Poles. The wave of migration began in 2004, following EU ascension, and was helped by the expiration of restrictions on Polish migration in 2011. Experts believe that the migrants are unlikely to return.

Dr. Marcin Galent, emigration researcher at the Institute of European Studies, says that most emigrants “grow roots abroad, as indicated for example by data on Polish children born in the UK. They might eventually come back to the country for retirement.” High unemployment and lower standards of living in Poland are often given as the main reasons for the migration. However, Professor Maciej Duszczyk of the Centre of Migration Research has told the Rzeczpospolita daily that “one of the main factors influencing the scale of Polish emigration is the negative perception of the effectiveness of the state, meaning the trust of citizens towards institutions, bureaucracy, the health service, courts.”

Historically, this is the second largest wave of Polish emigration. The largest wave was in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when 3.5 million Poles left due to poverty. (sl/pg)

[TsarSamuil]

Slovak president sets date of referendum on protection of family.

English.news.cn 2014-11-29 05:35:08

BRATISLAVA, Nov. 28 (Xinhua) -- The people of Slovakia are to be given an opportunity to voice their views on the "protection of the family" after President Andrej Kiosk set the date of the referendum on the issue for Feb. 7, 2015, reported by local news agency TASR on Friday.

The referendum will seek people's answers to three questions. These concern the use of the word "marriage" only when referring to the union of a man and a woman, a question on preventing same-sex couples from adopting children, and whether or not parents should be enabled to decide if their children should attend classes dealing with sex education and euthanasia.

A petition for calling the referendum - which was initially supposed to include four questions - has been initiated by the Family Alliance (AZR), as it handed over 400,000 signatures from the public to President's Office on Aug. 27.

According to the president, Saturday, Feb. 7, 2015 has turned out to be the only feasible date for the referendum, as families aren't expected to travel to or from their spring holidays on that particular day. He added that he'd consulted the date with the Interior Ministry and has received assurances that state authorities are able to do all the necessary prep work.

This will be the eighth referendum in the history of independent Slovakia.

[TsarSamuil]

Lukashenko approves $10,000 bonus for large families.

05 December 2014 16:13 | President

MINSK, 5 December (BelTA) – Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has approved the decision to introduce a $10,000 bonus under the family capital program to the families who give birth to the third and subsequent children. The decision will be in effect starting from 1 January 2015. Alexander Lukashenko announced this decision as he met with Labor and Social Security Minister Marianna Shchetkina on 5 December, BelTA has learned.

“We both agree that the matter is of utmost importance for us. The population in Belarus should grow,” the head of state said. The draft decree spelling out the benefits and allowances for families with children and the measures to increase the birthrate was handed over to the President. The draft decree incorporates the remarks and suggestions that were voiced at one of the sessions presided by the head of state. Alexander Lukashenko noted that before signing the draft decree he wanted to know all the subtleties of state support for big families. The document will come into effect on 1 January 2015. “We have agreed that these will be long-term measures. Families giving birth to the third and subsequent children will be rewarded with a lump-sum payment of $10,000. They will be able to use the money 18 years later. Over this time the amount will increase up to $14,000 or even $15,000. The money is good. This is long-term support. There is also routine support, short-term support, benefits and allowances, subsidized housing loans, etc.,” the President said.

“However we should not overstretch the budget. If we undertake too many obligations and fail to deliver on our promises, this will bring to nought all our efforts to support families with children, though we have already done a lot on this front. Thus, we cannot make a mistake. We should fulfill our promises. However, we should not go to extremes,” Alexander Lukashenko said.

The draft decree on the family capital program provides for one-time cashless transfer of $10,000 to families upon the birth of the third and subsequent children. Qualifying for the bonus will be Belarusian nationals who will give birth to or adopt the third and subsequent children from the period of 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2019. Families will be able to apply for the bonus at local executive and regulatory authorities. Families should claim the money within six months after the birth or adoption of the third or subsequent children. They will be able to use the money when this child turns 18. The money can be used to improve housing conditions, get education or other services, including social services and healthcare services, or be deposited to a mother's pension account. The money can be used before a child turns 18 if a family needs to pay for medical services. The bonus will be transferred to family deposits to be opened at Belarusbank.

Marianna Shchetkina noted that the central budget has already allocated Br1.8 trillion for the project in 2015.

[TsarSamuil]

Patriarch seeks abortion ban in Russia in parliament speech.

RT.com
January 22, 2015 12:52

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church has called upon MPs to begin a campaign against abortions, starting with canceling state sponsorship for the procedure and aiming at a total nationwide ban.

“If we manage to cut the number of abortions by 50 percent we would have stable and powerful population growth,” Patriarch Kirill said, speaking before the Lower House on Thursday. This was the first ever speech of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church before the State Duma.

“The argument that a ban would cause an increase in the number of underground abortions is pure nonsense. People have to pay money for these operations and our task is to make the price of a legal infanticide the same as of the illegal one. Taxpayers must not pay for this,” the church leader told the MPs, suggesting the exclusion of abortion from the list of services covered by the obligatory medical insurance program.

However, the Patriarch acknowledged the solution to demographic problems was complex. According to him, apart from bans and restrictions, the state must help young families with money and housing and also introduce strict ethical norms in the medical sphere, giving doctors additional stimuli to care about the life of “conceived children.”

The top Russian cleric again attacked surrogacy in his parliamentary speech, urging lawmakers to take steps to completely replace it with adoption.

In mid-November last year, a large assembly formed of lawmakers, rights activists, medical experts and members of various church-related groups passed a resolution seeking legislative changes to ban all abortions, saying human life begins at the moment of conception. The authors of the document said that although Russia ratified the International Convention on Children’s Rights in 1990, the authorities still do nothing to “protect children before birth.”

The bill brands abortions as murder and completely bans them along with contraceptives “with an abortive function” – morning-after pills and intra-uterine devices.

In October 2013, an official representative of the Russian Orthodox Church attacked abortions and surrogacy as a “mutiny against God,” and less than a month later State Duma Deputy Elena Mizulina said in a speech that the community must urgently stop tolerating abortions and surrogacy, as they threaten to wipe out the population of Russia and the world as a whole.

The move gained little support from other politicians, who argued that such a ban would only lead to more illegal abortions that are much more dangerous and leave many women infertile, only aggravating Russia’s demographic problems. Eventually Mizulina had to play down her statements, saying that she merely wanted to draw attention to the problem and start a discussion, not introduce any legislative bans.

According to pro-life activists, every year about 1 million women in Russia have induced abortions with only 10 percent of them being carried out for health reasons.