’Childhood without Cruelty and Violence’ coalition formed

This coalition has been formed by Russian NGOs following a conference organised by a joint working group on children’s issues drawn from public chamber committees that took place in Smolensk.

It was proposed that once the coalition had been formed, it would collect data about child crime and offences against children and also look into the situation in children’s institutions in the regions. The working group has published a special report that will be forwarded to the president of the Russian Federation and the federal ombudsman. The report was necessitated in the view of the NGOs because of a lack of trustworthy information from official sources.

Boris Altshuler, a member of the public chamber and chair of the Rights of the Child organisation, said: ‘There is conflicting information from the authorities about the incidence of serious crimes against children. In the Smolensk Oblast, 2009 saw an increase in serious and especially serious crimes against children in the order of 14.4% in comparison with the previous year.’ The plan is for the coalition to help the chamber to establish public oversight commissions for closed children’s institutions and at the present time work is proceeding on a Bill to introduce public control over children’s institutions.

ASI bulletin 8 March 2010