Rights of the child in contemporary Russia

Human Rights & Wrongs in a Globalised World

With reference to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to what extent the rights of the children are protected in Russia?

Abstract

The Russian Federation has always excelled in signing up for Human Rights conventions and funding international projects under the labels of charity, peacekeeping, rights, etc. It is no different in the case of Children Rights, Russia has signed and ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, but what does that mean in reality? This essay will discover that equal access to healthcare and education is not provided for every child (children with disability, refugees are excluded, poverty prevents families to send their child to school), also there is a significant lack of profession for integrated education. Russia is still one of the worst places in terms of child labour, including its worst forms especially child trafficking, where again, the poor and asylum seekers are the most targeted. There is no free access of data and free expression for children, there is corruption and there is no education on the rights of the gay, it is prohibited to inform children on that. Even though, there is so much fault in enforcing those Children Rights, there is a significant lack of data, Russia does not analyse its children’ lives, there is no data on agricultural child labour, nor specific data on child cases in human trafficking.

Formally, given all the signed conventions, ratifications and implementations in policies, Russia should be a Kanaan for Children Rights, yet in reality the enforcement is close to sum zero and there is not much done about the causes (poverty, exclusion) of these abuses of the rights of the child.

In this essay we will discover to what a limited extent the rights of the children (aged from 0 to 18) are protected in the Russian Federation after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the signing and ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).  Even though, there are formal developments in policies and laws, there is a significant lack in data for measuring or monitoring those efforts taken (US Department of Labour, 2013; Stephenson, 2002). I found the freedoms, education, labour and trafficking of the child – connecting with healthcare, exclusion and poverty – the most relevant field where we cannot see much significant steps taken by the government.  Yet these are extremely important factors for a child’s wellbeing and to prevent them from further poverty, to be able to break out of its circle they must be protected from such conditions and supported by education, healthcare and integration. In order to discover this issue, first we will look at the theoretical and conceptual framework, namely the UNCRC, signed and ratified by Russia (United Nations, 1989). Second, then we will analyse to what extent those points of the UNCRC are implemented in the legal and political framework of Russia, how much have they been enforced, and to what extent they are functioning in reality. We will do an empirical study on the ‘truth’ of Russia’s actions and their efficiency by looking at the available records and data on the conditions of the childhood, particularly their first years (Almong, 2015; Humanium, n.d.), education (Filatova et al., 2012; Iarskaia-Smirnova, 2016; Savinskaya, 2015; Sinyagina and Rayfschnayder 2016), worst forms of labour – of street children – (what enforces them to leave their home and their working and for sexual services (Balachova, Bonner and Levy, 2008; ECPAT and Body Shop, n.d.; Law Library of Congress, 2007; Stephenson, 2002; United States Department of Labour, 2014), and how even certain freedoms (that of speech and access to data) are not provided or even prohibited (Dittrich, 2014; Humanium; n.d.). The aim of this paper – although many scholars do, yet not so effectively – to raise awareness on the issue of Russia: how it has signed and ratified various conventions (ECPAT and Body Shop, n.d.), created laws and cooperates on the international level with UNICEF and even though, basic rights are formally provided, there is not much done to make those accessible to everyone. It lacks significant development within its system of necessary prevention and protection during the childhood, the key to a healthy growing up and adult life of those who eventually could contribute to a healthy society and the economy of Russia.

First of all, in order to understand the following concepts, we need to know some definitions and points of the UNCRC. It defines children as everyone under the age of 18 with no exclusion. It declares that every child has a right to an identity, own views, thoughts, feelings and to express those. It also gives right to access reliable information from media, to healthcare, education (which goal’s must be the development of the child’s personality), and juvenile justice. The convention requires ratifying states to protect children from all means of violence, discrimination, labour, drug abuse, sexual exploitation, trafficking and all other forms of exploitation. The state also must provide support for those who are unable to live with their family, those who are refugees, minorities, disabled or those who experienced a harm against the previous rights and needs recovery from trauma. There are also three optional protocols which ratifying states can decide on whether to sign up to those or not (United Nations, 1989). This weakens the rights of the child already, as it is not enforced from international level, it is more like a guidance on which nations can decide whether to apply certain articles or not, the convention is weak by nature.

Yet, Russia has signed up for promoting and protecting these rights, so secondly, now keeping that in mind, let us look at the situation in Russia, even though there is a significant lack of data and statistics (US Department of Labour, 2013; Stephenson, 2002). Despite that we can always hear how Russia funds UNICEF projects on the international level, there is not so much effectiveness on the domestic level, where the UNCRC is implemented in the Family code but this implementation is not publicised in national awareness (Law Library of Congress, 2007; Sputnik International, 2017; UNICEF, 2016). Although, there is significant development in morality levels and family support, the UNICEF (2009) argues that death rate is still four times worse than in any state within Europe, HIV is continuously spreading, socio-economic inequalities increase, and there would be need for monitoring data and results. Child population falls one million a year, there is no right protected and supported for protection, free expression and non-discrimination (Lukin in Human Rights House Foundation, 2005; Humanum, n.d.). There are so many issues and lack of rights for children in Russia, we must go through the development of the child to discover all the failures in his/her support.

First then, the birth and first years of the child can be supported by the mother’s support via healthcare and maternity leave, encouraging women to give birth by not risking their career. This could be done by defamilization of the gendered family-model with the male bread-earner, yet there is a kind of refamilization in Russia: instead of promoting their mothership by supporting their career, they are being pushed back to homes to do nothing else but be mothers. I find that as Russia has already started the process of gender equalising and defamilization, but then changed ‘its mind’ which is problematic as women has already sought to build their career and keep it alongside mothership. If patriarchy family-model with irregular, small amount of maternity leave funds or low levels of healthcare remains, they may be less likely to become mothers as their career takes even more effort and puts their health in risk or more costs than if it was in a gender-equal environment, also they will still want their career more (Almong, 2015; Law Library of Congress, 2007). I do understand that Russia has learned from the Soviet Union’s fault that women’s labour has decreased birth-rates but pushing women back to be the primary care-givers, leaving them vulnerable in labour may not be the solution, rather an even more sufficient gender-equality policy would allow women to put less effort intro their job and keep more to raise their family. Not to mention another important factor from this stage onwards would be the right to protection, yet in Russia there are still many children without any protection (Humanium, n.d.).

The second important stage is education. All children must have access to education, but that is not necessarily the case in Russia. There are various factors stopping children to attend mandatory education, that can be the family’s financial situation, disability, or ethnic differences. Even though, free compulsory education is provided and children must be accepted in the institution closes to their home, families may rather need their child’s labour to keep the family running. Also, there is a lack of professional institutions for children with disability and their integrated education with ‘normal’ children has no teachers with the necessary profession. Not to mention that there is a serious lack of norms within society about integrated education, as surveys show (Law Library of Congress, 2007; Iarskaia-Smirnova, 2016; Sinyagina and Rayfschnayder 2016). The only sector of education which has been growing in the 21^st century is the preschool education or kindergartens, but this is rather a place for socialisation and healthy lifestyle of the child in parents’ eyes, not education (Filatova et al., 2012; Savinskaya, 2015). Therefore, I found that mandatory education – until the age of 16 – is formally provided – although with a lack of education on preschool –, but there are no steps against those factors that stop families to send their child to school, so the access is not ensured.

Third, child labour has a high rate in Russia including its worst forms: selling (especially on the street), car washing, glass and refuse collection – as these involve danger to the child’s health and wellbeing. Asylum seekers, refugees, orphans and those from poverty are the most vulnerable here, as even though there is law against child labour under the age of 14 (only with special circumstances), there is no action against the so-called shadow-market or informal economy, where children do work. Again, we see that formally child labour is prohibited and not allowed, yet there is no action against and there are no special safety requirements for those in the industry under 18 (Stephenson, 2002). Children in Russia work for various reasons but there is no universal definition of street-children which lead to no statistics nor data on the issue. What we know from surveys is that only a tiny minority of them are real parentless street-children and those usually leave their home due to parental alcohol/physical abuse or HIV/AIDS disability. The majority has a home with at least one parent alive, contributing to the family-income, mostly in the urban areas as we have no data on the labour of children in the agriculture (Balachova, Bonner and Levy, 2008).

The most terrific form of child labour, human trafficking is still one of the highest rates of the World in Russia (United States Department of Labour, 2014). It is driven by poverty, cultural practice, official corruption, and many other factors. Russia is both, a large importer (‘receiver’) and exporter (‘sender’)  of trafficked people, yet there is no data available on child-victims and there is not much can be done within the legal framework unless the victim him- or herself goes to the police, relatives cannot put charges and victims are unlikely to do so as their activity is also illegal (Law Library of Congress, 2007). Unfortunately, until there is a high demand for trafficking by paedophiles and other customers and traffickers are hard to be recognised as they can come from any background, it is hard to act against this issue. Russia should support anti-trafficking actions and widen the legal options for those involved, as currently there is only a very few cases where court gets involved and even less where judgement takes place against a trafficker (ECPAT and Body Shop, n.d.).

Fourth, freedom of speech, expression and access to data is an important factor of the development of the identity of the child. Yet in Russia there is an undoubtable corruption and anti-LGBTQ policies in terms of ‘gay sex is not a crime in Russia, so gay people can feel calm, and ease, but leave children in peace, please’. Meaning that the child cannot be informed about gay being – even though formally their rights is given to find sources and do research – they cannot be taught or informed outside of their own will (Dittrich, 2014). Also, the formally provided freedom of speech remains absolutely limited, but not only for the child, this is an issue in all age-ranges within Russia due to the governmental control of media, even NGOs are subject to this censoring (Humanium, n.d.). I found not only in terms of the support of child-delivery, maternity, discrimination in education, labour including trafficking, but also in terms of rights to free self-expression that Russia only provides these childhood essentials formally by policies but acts nothing to ensure their accessibility.

In a conclusion, we have seen that Russia is a special case in terms of Children’s Rights. No doubt it signs many global conventions on the rights of the child and contributes to UNICEF projects by significant funds. It also mostly implements those rights in domestic laws and policies, all basic rights mentioned in the beginning are given to all children, yet the right to protection, free expression remains excluded. Also, we have seen little or no action in preventing and acting against those aspects – meaning poverty, discrimination of disabled and immigrants, social norms, lack of profession – which enforce children and their families to be unable to follow those formally provided rights on the healthcare, education and labour.

I believe that the Russian government should do more against those factors – that prevent formal laws and provided facilities to be accessed – by higher budget on the support of mothers’ labour, children’s healthcare, education and prevention of family poverty. Also, there is a high necessity of collecting data on the issue to see where exactly those extra measures are needed to prevent the problem in roots, as clearly it is not that rights are not given, but that they cannot be accessed or ensured to every single child equally.

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