Russia's lower house of parliament voted unanimously on Tuesday to ban what authorities cast as pernicious propaganda for a child-free way of life, hoping to boost a faltering birth rate. - REUTERS
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00:00Russia's lower house of parliament on Tuesday voted unanimously to ban what authorities
00:07are calling harmful child-free propaganda.
00:11The effort aims to help reverse the country's plummeting birth rate.
00:15Official data released in September shows Russia's birth rate at its lowest in 25 years.
00:21The Kremlin called the figures catastrophic for the future of the nation.
00:26Under the new law, those promoting child-free ideas face fines of up to 5 million rubles.
00:33But some told Reuters that a government crackdown on messaging misses the mark.
00:38Thirty-three-year-old Alina Zhenova told Reuters it's financial insecurity that is holding
00:43back family growth.
00:45Banning child-free propaganda, well, it won't do much, because the problem, again, is that
00:52people don't want to have children, women don't give birth, families don't have children,
00:57not because they've been told something somewhere.
01:00It's still a strong instinct.
01:02People want to have children, but they don't have the money.
01:05That's why people don't have kids, not because of something someone wrote somewhere.
01:11That sentiment was echoed by 40-year-old Yana, who declined to give her surname because
01:16of the subject's sensitivity.
01:18I think that people have children when they are confident about the future.
01:26But when mortgage interest reaches 20 percent a year, I don't think it's a favorable time
01:31to have children in unlimited numbers.
01:35For her, political and economic stability, not bans, could make a difference.
01:43We need to stabilize the political situation.
01:45Let's call it that.
01:46We need to create favorable conditions for life in the country, so that maybe those people
01:51who have left there in recent years would want to return here.
01:57The law joins other Russian restrictions on free expression.
02:00The country already bans content deemed to promote non-traditional lifestyles, such as
02:06same-sex relationships.
02:07Meanwhile, population figures paint a stark picture.
02:11In the first half of 2024, fewer than 600,000 children were born, a drop of 16,000 from
02:19the same period in 2023, and the lowest since 1999.
02:25President Vladimir Putin has encouraged women to aim for at least three children.
02:30The new law is expected to be approved swiftly.