Schoolgirls will be offered a cash sum of £1,000 if they fall pregnant under a new scheme being piloted in one region of Russia following Vladimir Putin’s desperate plea for higher birth rates
Pregnant schoolgirls will be handed almost £1,000 in cash under Vladimir Putin’s ‘crazy’ scheme to boost Russia’s dwindlingbirth rates. The state handouts for underage pregnancies are being piloted in Oryol region, which has seen a population slump of almost 8,000 people.
The policy, which has been signed into law by Putin-loyalist governor Andrey Klychkov, will see teenage girls and university students qualify if they are more than 12 weeks pregnant. There is no minimum age for pregnant girls to receive the payment of 100,000 Russian rubles, equivalent to £920.
It follows a decree from Putin in December to “strengthen the institution of family and marriage” and increase the average number of children per woman to 1.6 by 2030. Russia’s current birth rate is just 1.41 children per woman, well below the 2.1 needed for population replacement.
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It has been accompanied by a wave of propaganda discouraging abortion and opposing same-sex relationships. The new line from the Kremlin on promoting teen births has also been reflected on Russian reality TV, as one show previously called Pregnant at 16 has been rebranded as ‘Mama at 16’, with a new focus on highlighting the ‘beauty of motherhood’.
Oryol is the first region to offer payments to schoolgirls – but the announcement has not been without criticism, even from some people commenting on the state media website. One person wrote: “So, the [regional] administration will promote pregnancy during school years to the masses? Idiots.”
Another person said: “Now foolish [girls] will get pregnant for the sake of a new iPhone.” Someone else commented: “Pregnant at 16 is no longer a TV reality show, but a state programme.”
Demographer Alexey Raksha meanwhile warned: “The counterproductive desire to ‘rejuvenate’ the birth rate in the provinces leads to absurd decisions. We have never seen such idiocy.”
Prominent MP Nina Ostanina, head of the Family Committee in the Russian parliament, also slammed the attempt to “encourage children to become parents at school”. TV host Oskar Kuchera branded the new one-off payment initiative “ridiculous” and “nonsense”.
Governor Andrey Klychkov, 45, a member of the Kremlin-backed communist party, said: “To my surprise, everyone was very interested in my decree.” He predicted other regions would follow his example, and said he expected co-financing from the federal budget.
In Russia, the age of consent is 16, and women below 18 are considered underage. Pointing out that the new ruling could see couples fall foul of the law, one comment said: “We can have a situation where a girl of 15 claims the money for her pregnancy while her boyfriend of 17 is prosecuted for sex with an underage child. This is crazy.”
It is only the latest bizarre idea put forward by Russian politicians to meet Putin’s demands for a rise in the population rate. Last week pro-Putin Kaluga region MP Evgeny Rudenko, 50, demanded that women wear more mini-skirts “to increase Russia’s demographics”.
And in January, there was a call for Russian men called up to fight in the war to donate sperm so they can boost the country’s flagging populationm even if they are killed in action. The war is seen as a key factor in Russia’s declining birth rate, both because families feel insecure and do not have babies, but also due to Putin’s ‘cannon fodder’ tactics which have sent an estimated 700,000 men to their deaths.
