To Address Russia’s Demographic Crisis, One Duma Deputy wants to Cancel Sentences of All Female Prisoners who Give Birth or Get Pregnant During Home Leave

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 21 – The accelerating decline in the number of births in the Russian Federation is generating any number of ideas, including banning abortions, promoting a return to the villages, restricting the access of women to higher education, and reversing the view promoted since 1991 that Russians like everyone else should be free to choose for themselves.

            But perhaps the most extreme of these comes from a Duma deputy who wants to address his country’s demographic problems through the use of a method that Vladimir Putin has adopted to fill the ranks of the Russian army in Ukraine: pardoning prisoners who do what the regime wants.

            Valerey Seleznev points out that many women prisoners in the Russian Federation “are capable of giving birth to children.” And because that is so, “the state can offer them a kind of deal” in which those who get pregnant or give birth during home leave can have the remainder of their sentences cancelled” (nakanune.ru/articles/121541/).