MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti commentator Olga Sobolevskaya) - On June 1, the International Day of Children's Protection, it is traditional to announce statistic data.
Like this: about one third of little Russians, over 400,000, are born out of wedlock, every seventh child is raised in a broken family. Last year, 65,000 children were taken away from their parents, who lost parental rights.
"The Russian family looks simply depressing," said recently Yekaterina Lakhova, chairman of the Russian parliament's Committee for Women's Issues, the Families and Youth.
Russia needs a national plan of action to protect children. Being the most vulnerable group of the society, they suffered most from the social and economic problems of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The level of their physical and psychological health has declined drastically. Less than one third of babies are born absolutely healthy.
Almost 40% of schoolchildren regularly drink alcohol, said Lakhova, and 70% out of 3 mln drug addicts in the country are teenagers and young people.
It is almost impossible to keep track of Russian children adopted by foreigners, as "Russia's jurisdiction stops at the border," she said.
The national plan could resolve these problems. The government has already made protection of mothers and children a priority. "Investment in children, in the future of the country's development is justified and expedient," said the department of medical and social problems of family, mothers and children of the Russian Healthcare and Social Development Ministry. The plan secures four rights of a child: for life, development, socialization and help in a difficult situation.
But can it be implemented if the situation is changed only from the above, by the government's will? Hardly so. Over the last decade the family has been devaluated as an institution. Concerns in this respect have been voiced by the President, the Russian Orthodox Church and parliament.
The cult of individualism, of personal success and prosperity, which has been slowly but steadily establishing itself in Russia, has put family values aside.
Russians of the childbearing age now prefer career to family. The aggressive sexual revolution, which found an unexpectedly high number of supporters in Russia, has "canonized" pleasure and absolute sexual freedom.
Private life and what is considered love or affection have become consumer goods. People consume it as passionately as they buy new household appliances, but prefer quantity to quality.
Marriage and children turn out to be a burden that does not fit in the new consumer way of life. In 2003, 800,000 married couples got a divorce, last year 636,000. The figures are quite telling.
Apparently, children were the first victims of family discrediting. They receive the main psychological blow on themselves. Meanwhile, Russia has fewer and fewer chances to somehow compensate for the demographic failure: Russian families increasingly often decide not to have a second child. Most families have one child, like in Europe. The birth rate - the number of children born per woman of the childbearing age - is 1.3, while just 15 years ago it was 2.
Moreover, Russian women often have to work overtime and some of them do not see much of their children. Russia has become a country of working grandmothers (retirement pensions are small and not enough to live on), so they cannot devote themselves to raising grandchildren either. As a result, children do not receive enough attention and care in the family - such is the sad trend of recent years.
Yet there is nothing to wonder at: the race after personal success implies that you have to get rid of everything irrelevant, which prevents you from making a career and a fortune. Increasingly often the irrelevant means children. But prosperity should be achieved not at the expense of their interests, but for their sake. Children must be a national priority in practice.
