On June 1, International Children’s Day, Elena Mizulina, the Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation, introduced a bill on the prohibition of baby boxes to the State Duma.
Baby boxes – anonymous drop-off points designed to prevent the deaths of abandoned infants – exist in several regions of Russia.
Description over the door: “Give your child a chance to survive!”
The baby box opens from the street. A woman can open the door of the capsule and put there an unwanted infant. After the mother closes the door of the baby box, she has 30 seconds to think. Then, the chamber lock is locked and a signal of an incoming baby is going off in the intensive care unit of the hospital.
If the child is not declared missing and his parents are unknown, it is given the status of a foundling. The mother though can change her mind and get back her child after genetic test, but only in case if the child is not yet adopted.
In five years fifty-one children were left in Russian baby boxes. Eight of these babies were returned to their parents.
Since there is no law about baby boxes in Russia, they are financed semi-legally by private sponsors. Some time ago a bill to legalize public financing of baby boxes and to add State financing was introduced into the State Duma. The authors of the initiative noted there is no way for mothers in difficult circumstances to give up a child without a formal. This leads to mothers killing newborns or leaving them in dangerous places. The law has not been adopted.
This week Russian media was passionately discussing the new initiative of Elena Mizulina, who believes that installing baby boxes “encourages giving children away” and does not reduce the number of baby killings. Mizulina also believes that the baby boxes “increase the risks of child trafficking and other transactions with them.”
The bill to ban baby boxes provides for administrative liability for public officials who “create conditions for the anonymous abandonment of children.” Mizulina proposes to impose on these “criminals” an administrative fine ranging from one million to five million rubles, or suspend their professional activities for up to 90 days.
Today, Elena Mizulina is known as the most aggressive spokesperson for ultra-conservatism and patriotism. She fought against surrogate motherhood, against abortions, and against adoption of Russian children by foreigners. Mizulina anti-gay legislative proposals such as the demand for withdrawal of children from non-traditional families were subject to public anger as outright discriminatory. Mizulina triumphed when the Duma and the President approved her bill, providing punishment in the form of monetary penalties for “propagation of nontraditional sexual relations among minors”.
Elena Mizulina
It’s interesting to notice that once Mizulina’s profile was quite different. As a leading member of the progressive liberal opposition during the 1990s, she opposed the war in Chechnya and was at the heart of a move to impeach Yeltsin. Another interesting fact: today Mizulina’s son Nikolay (born in 1978) is a successful lawyer who lives and works in Brussels, a partner at law firm Mayer Brown, known as a defender of gay rights. Nikolay is married to a citizen of Spain and has two children.
Mizulina never discusses these facts with press. She is the recipient of a number of state awards; the last one was the medal of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation “For the return of the Crimea” (2014.).
Boris Altshuler, the head of the organization Rights of Children, commented about Mizulina’s initiative on the radio Liberty broadcast:
“Elena Mizulina’s initiatives shock me. A couple of years ago, she demanded to imprison a father for 10 years who in violation of the court order for communication with his child was taking his child to his home. Recently, due to the fact that a 13-year-old girl on the Internet allegedly provoked people to commit suicide, Mazulina proposed to reduce the age of criminal responsibility to 13 years. Elena is a unique deputy who has been acting with absurd initiatives. Now, about the ban of baby boxes. They do allow you to save the life of children, it is the fact. There are statistics about the rescued kids. Elena, maybe you offer today to kill those babies? Because the baby-boxes are places where babies were saved in bad, devilish way?”
