“Right of the Child” (ROC) contribution for the Autumn/Fall issue of the NGO Group Talk

Russia and UN Committee on the Rights of the Child

In August 2010 Russian Government began the rush-work to draft the Russia’s combined 4-th and 5-th State Periodic Report which must be submitted to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in March 2011. In the paper the basic problems of Russian child-protecting system are listed (absence of juvenile justice and of inclusive education, “fabric” and institutionalization of new orphans, mis-diagnostics of mental disability, mass malnutrition, absence of the Federal Body responsible for implementation in Russia of Convention on the Rights of the Child) with the main message: Russia still does not fulfill the repeated (of 1993, 1999, 2005) recommendations of CRC’s Concluding Observations. However certain events and President’s decisions of the last year give Hope for future.

In March 2011 Russia must submit to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) its combined “Forth & Fivth State Periodic Report on Realization in Russian Federation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 2003-2010”. Being the Head of ROC (umbrella NGO for the Coalitions of Russia’s NGOs which submitted the Alternative Reports to CRC in 1998 and 2005), and also being a Member of Public Chamber of Russian Federation (according to Decree of President Dmitry Medvedev from 23.09.2009 # 1070) I am informed that on 12 August 2010 Ministry of Health Care and Social Development of Russia formed the Interdepartmental Working Group with a task to draft ASAP the State Periodic Report - 2011; the Group is chaired by Deputy Minister Maxim Topilin. I don’t know what will they write in the State Report, but I know for definite that they will have problems to find something good to write about, and also know that we – children’s rights advocates of Russia will surely prepare our Alternative Report after State Report will be submitted to CRC.

The main message of the Alternative Reports 1998 and 2005 was the following: Russia systematically ignores and not implement the recommendations of the CRC’s Concluding Observations of 1993 and 1999 correspondingly. Unfortunately the same must be repeated today as regards to the CRC’s Concluding Observations - 2005. But before listing drawbacks I want to emphasize that in the end of 2009 and mostly now in 2010 the Hope appeared that real measures will be taken to improve Russian system of protection of children’s rights. I’ll speak about these perspectives in the end of this note.

Now let us look at some basic issues of non-fulfillment by Russia of the CRC’s recommendations:
- The repeated (in 1993, 1999, 2005) advices to pass the laws on Juvenile justice are still ignored: there is certain progress on the pilot-regions level, but no federal laws are passed yet. Meanwhile the number of Russian minors in custody remains quite high. And what is not less sad – the liberalization of Criminal Code with regards to minors (which is very good by itself) was not accompanied with creation of the social probation system; thus minor-delinquent not deprived of freedom is left in the same environment which made him the perpetrator of the Law.

- According to the State Federal statistics in the year 2009 there appeared 114715 of new children deprived of parental care (314 per day in average), among them 50323 (138 every day in average) became orphans because of the Courts’ decisions on deprivation of their parents of parental rights. And only 9578 kids (8,4%) where returned back to their biological parents during the year 2009. These shocking figures say that system of the social preventive-restoring work with vulnerable families and children is not elaborated in Russia at all.

- In particular there are not created yet effective mechanisms of consideration and positive reaction to complaints about cruel and degrading treatment. At the recent (about 10 days ago) Meeting at the top level with participation of Prosecutor General of Russia there was announced that 100.000 thousand children suffer in Russia from violence, including sexual violence, and cruel treatment during a year. Attention to the problem at the top level may be only greeted. However effective systematic remedies capable to improve the situation are still at hand; unfortunately they are “at hand” during many years.

- Regardless of taken measures and of the direct Order of that time (May 2006) President Putin number of institutionalized children is still extremely high (120 thousands of orphans and twice of this figure more of non-orphaned inmates – children with problems of health permanently living in so called special (corrective) school-internats, children – “temporary” inmates of social shelters, or so called “parental children” placed from the vulnerable families to internats “on the application of parents”, and this application is repeated every year). The effective system of family care of orphans is not built in Russia yet.
 
- Also there are drastic violations of rights of children in these institutions, which are practically closed for “external eye”. And mis-diagnostics of mental disability is still flourishing; because of it thousands of kids are buried alive in social (non-educational) Children’s Homes-Internats (DDI) for mentally disabled children. In the last 3-4 years the volunteer movements (mostly of young mothers under 30 united by internet) began to develop in Russia, volunteers see violations of rights and appeal to us since there own criticism of authorities will immediately close for them the very possibility to enter these facilities and to help children.

- There is systematic malnutrition of millions of children living in poor families (officially there are 5 million of them, in reality 2 or 3 times more); plenty of children and families with children, including large families with 3 or more kids, live in the unacceptable housings. And all this exists in the situation of catastrophically decreasing children population of Russia (in the beginning of 1990-th there were 22 million of children from 7 to 17 years old studying in schools; on the 1 September 2010 only 13 million went to school after Summer vacations).

- And there is no inclusive education in Russian schools; traditional educational segregation is still flourishing.

- There is strong geographic disparity in social protection between regions (Russia consists of 84 regions – provinces), it increased drastically in last 5 years. This was one of the main concerns of the CRC’s Concluding Observations – 2005; and this concern was totally ignored. Just to illustrate: in the Report dedicated to health care in Russia presented in September 2010 by the Russian “League of Health” it is said that health care budget allocations per capita differ between some regions 6 times (600% !).

- And the last item of this short list: in Russia, in spite of many times repeated recommendation of CRC, it is not created yet the Federal Interdepartmental Body responsible for implementation of Convention on the Rights of the Child, and authorized in particular to read attentively the Concluding Observations of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.
 
However “despondency is a mortal sin” and I finalize this note with listing the events which perhaps are the Hope for future.

- On 16 March 2009 President Medvedev said at the Meeting dedicated to prevention of violence against children: “Russia vitally needs modern system of protection of childhood. At present we don’t have system at all!”.

- After that President made the repeated orders to subordinate bodies to elaborate the proposals on building the system. But they did not cope with the task so far.

- Then President went another way. With his Decree from 1 September 2009 the new position of the President’s Ombudsman for Children’s Rights was established. We cooperate closely with Pavel Astakhov in elaborating the needed reforms. In particular in drafting the Law on Public Inspectorate of Children’s Institutions and on creating the Federal Interdepartmental Coordinating Body responsible for State politics in childhood and family. In May 2010 the special Commission in Administration of President was created which only goal is to give proposals on creation of such a Federal Body. I was invited to be a member of this Commission and we do our best now to fulfill the task.

- In parallel the same job, but on a wider level, we perform in Public Chamber of Russian Federation. Surely the problem is not in the lack of ideas and of draft laws. The problem is in the strong anti-reform lobby of those circles which are vitally (financially) interested in preservation of the traditional “orphan-producing” situation. We call these circles Russ-orphan-prom (in analogy with Gaz-prom which makes enormous money from gas, and here the source of income is not gas but institutionalized orphans).

- In January 2010 President Medvedev signed the National Educational Initiative “Our New School” where most positive things were declared, including the necessity of “individual approach” in the ordinary schools (which is the necessary step to inclusive education). In June Ministry of Education and Science put in the internet for the public discussion and critics the draft of new Law “On Education in Russian Federation” aimed at implementation of the President’s Initiative. However in some crucial points this draft Law, according to our view, preserves the old system and will not permit to implement President’s National Educational Initiative. We – working in different influential public bodies – made our amendments which will be submitted to the Ministry of Education and Science  in 1 or 2 weeks.

And I must tell that all our proposals are motivated by the concrete precedents, by the everyday children’s rights work. ROC is “attacked” by plenty complaints and almost every case is a tragedy. We work as a last resort, as a “children’s rights ambulance”. And when I became a member of Public Chamber of Russian Federation this flood of SOS-appeals increased essentially.

Moscow, 6 October 2010
Boris Altshuler,
Head of ROC (member organization of the NGO Group),
Member Moscow Helsinki Group,
Member Public Chamber of Russian Federation
+7-903-709-35-49
baltshuler@yandex.ru