Paul
Goble
Staunton, January 22 – Ivan Belozertsev,
head of Penza Oblast, has come up with his own solution to Russia’s demographic
problems: he has told his staff to meet with women seeking an abortion and talk
them out of it. If they fail, the governor says, they will be at risk of losing
their jobs.
This new hands’ on approach to
demography, one that goes far beyond what even some members of the Duma have
proposed and that exceeds earlier efforts in Penza, has been reported by the
Kasparov.ru portal which cites a press release that has been issued by the
Penza Oblast government (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5C45E19B6A981).
Like
many predominantly ethnic Russian regions, Penza suffers from demographic decline
with far more deaths than births. One of
the reasons the birthrate is so low is that Russian women frequently use abortions
as their primary form of birth control. Officials in Penza have been trying to
talk them out of that since at least 2011.
At
that time, the governor’s predecessor went so far as to offer prizes to gynecologists
who were able to convince women that they should give birth rather than have
abortions, an effort that does not seem to have had a major impact on demographic
trends in the region (sobkorr.org/material.php?id=4E6DFD1A097C7).
Now
Belozertsev has taken this notion to a whole new level, not only encouraging
officials of all kinds to meet with women but telling his staff that they will
be at a real risk of unemployment if they do not succeed in convincing Russian women
in the oblast to change their minds.
Not
surprisingly, this policy has sparked mirth and outrage. In a commentary for Vzglyad, Anna Fedorova,
the vice president of the Foundation for an Open New Democracy, for one, calls Belozertsev’s
policy “insane” and “a crude
interference” in the most intimate aspect of the personal lives of women (vz.ru/opinions/2019/1/21/960401.html).
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