To items 212-225 “Leisure, recreation and cultural activities”: 
Interesting for children and developing children leisure, recreation and culture ‘out of lessons activities’ are the main tools to hold children and young people from misbehavior, crime, alcohol, or drug addiction. State Consolidated Report does not tell about main problems in this field which are: 

1) Schools are not interested to have high quality supplementary education and prefer to fire the specialized teachers of the out of lessons activities and in this way to increase the salaries of regular teachers.

2) The financial support of supplementary establishments out of schools (Houses of Children’s Creativity, Sport sections etc.) is, according to the federal law, the responsibility of municipalities with their extremely poor budgets (whereas financial support of schools is the responsibility of the regional budget); as a result there is dramatic decay of the municipal systems of children’s leisure activities in last 10-20 years – only those establishments survive which take money for their services.

Because of it millions of children from poor families are deprived of possibilities for leisure, recreation, culture and sport activities.

Comments to Chapter X «Special protection measures» 

To items 235-238 and 256-266 “Administration of juvenile justice”, “Social reintegration”: 
Yes, Russian Criminal Code became much more humane to children delinquents in the last years. Sentences not connected with deprivation of freedom became an ordinary practice of the Courts. This makes more and more important the creation of the effective rehabilitation system. This problem is connected with necessity of effective interdepartmental coordination of the individual work at municipal level (see item ‘c’ in the attachment) and reforming of social system (see comment to item 54 of State Consolidated Report). 

The extremely dangerous draft law is discussed now in Russian governmental structures: they consider possibility to lower the age of criminal discretion from 14 years old (now) to 12 years old. Hopefully this law will not be passed.

To item 237: 
The punishments listed in this item not connected with restrictions of liberty are not accompanied as a rule by the additional social measures of rehabilitation, socialization and restoration as it is accepted in the countries with developed system of juvenile justice and as CRC, the Beijing Rules, the Riyadh guidelines recommend. The dramatic consequences are the repeated crimes with deprivation of freedom in the end. 

To item 239 “Administration of juvenile justice”: 
Juvenile courts. Yes, establishment of specialized procedures, presence at the trials of the social workers, and special ruling of juvenile courts addressed to local authorities had led to a significant decrease (10 times and more) in the minors’ crime recidivism in Rostov region. And this pilot juvenile justice experience was implemented in some courts of 50 regions of Russia. Also Plenum of the Supreme Court of Russian Federation in its Decision from February 01, 2011, having analyzed the practice of work of the pilot juvenile courts, acknowledged the importance of continuation and wide distribution of this work. 

And at the same time there is paradoxical situation of the many years delay of adoption of package of laws on establishing in Russia of juvenile courts. The “Anti-Juvenile” events of 2012-2013 supported at the high level of power perhaps are the explanation of this delay – see in more detail items ‘e’, ‘t’ in the Attachment.

To items 240-254 “Children deprived of liberty”:
The direct result of humanization of punishment of children delinquents is the decrease of number of children sentenced to deprivation of freedom or arrested during the investigation. At present (1 January 2013) there were 2300 children serving their term of deprivation of freedom in 46 corrective colonies. This number is 10 or more times less than 10 years ago. 

To item 245 
The adoption of the 2008 year standard named in item 245 (the obligatory transfer from juvenile to adults places of deprivation of freedom the young convict who reaches 19 years old) is directly contrary to item 3.3 of the Beijing rules, which involves the desire of countries-signatories to apply the principles of juvenile justice to young adults. Thus, a huge number of young adults immediately on reaching the age of 19 are sent to adult penal colony, where as a rule, they become an object of much more hard pressure by the adult inhabitants of these colonies, or are forced to behave aggressively in order to “survive” in more severe conditions of the criminal adult environment, which negatively affects their ability to further successful reintegration into society. 

It must be noted that before the introduction of this 2008 amendment to the Law on Penal Enforcement Code, the young adults were held separately from children and separately from adult offenders, that has helped to preserve socializing atmosphere for them.

Also this new rule created problems in juvenile penal colonies themselves because the older child-inmates anticipating their transfer at their 19 years to the adult criminal environment try to adopt themselves to it in advance which creates great problems for teachers and tutors in juvenile penal colonies.

To item 251:
The proper level of social support and of preparation for release of juvenile offenders is absent and very often is limited to the “accompanying to the bus”. This is a specific manifestation of general incapability of the present Russian social system for planned and targeted case-management (cf. comment to item 54). 

To Chapter X (“Special measures of protection”): Babies in custody.
There are now 796 babies and small (below 3 years old) children of women in custody living in 13 Baby Homes at the same territory of women isolation centers. Their mothers are given possibility to contact their children only for 1 hour per day. This is quite harmful for babies (contact of baby with mother during first 8 months of baby’s life is absolutely necessary for normal development). And this does not help social rehabilitation of their mothers. The custody must be organized in a way when mothers and their children may live together under tutorship of responsible personnel. 

To item 290 (Chapter X “Special measures of protection”). 
When parents divorce, the parent - owner of a residence (often it is father) have a right to sell the apartment “together” with his former wife and his own children, who after that become homeless. This legal possibility was introduced in 2005 in the federal legislation by Article 292 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation and by the Article 31 of the Housing Code of the Russian Federation. And during 8 years after adoption of this laws thousands of children were evicted “to nowhere” or to improper dwellings in rural districts with decisions of the Courts which in turn must follow the Law and are incapable to refuse the child’s eviction. (Cf. item ‘h’ of Attachment). 

Conclusion: Our Proposals of Reforms 

1. Elimination by the Law of any forms of the permanent communal life of children in institutions. Realization of this priority demands:

1.1. Creation in all children’s institutions, and wider – in all social establishments, of the ‘Family support divisions’ with the following tasks:

- Strengthening the restoring work with biological families, including extended families;

- Legal, organizational, psychology-pedagogical support of any forms of substitute families (this is the formula from the paragraph 1 of the President Putin’s Decree # 1688 from 28 December 2012);

- Ad hoc search and preparation of potential substitute parents.

1.2. Introduction in the federal legislation of the form “substitute professional family”, including patronat family care (see Comments to item 22 above).

1.3. Establishing in the Article 155 of the Family Code of Russian Federation that life of children in any institutions must be temporary and must be organized only in the separate family-like groups with permanent (24 hours per day) “tutors-parents” (in case of babies in custodies these must be the babies’ biological mothers – see comment above).

2. Development of the social orphanhood preventing work directed at preservation of the biological family. Realization of this priority demands: 

2.1. Radical reform of the tutorship and guardianship bodies who work now as executors of the families; their work must be incorporated by the Law in the planned case-management restoring work with vulnerable families.

2.2. Adoption of the innovative Federal Act “On the Foundation of social service in Russian Federation” which establishes in particular:

- home oriented assistance to children and families in the difficult life situation;

- planned case-management principle of organization of social assistance;

- competitive approach in the selection of providers of social services supported by budgets, with admission to this competition of the non-governmental socially important professional initiatives;

- introduction of the new form of social service “dwelling with social support” (about social dwelling see Proposal # 4 below) alternative to institutionalization, or to leaving child or young adult in helpless situation (it is often necessary for children who graduated from institution, for offenders after release from custody, for persons with disability…).

3. Inclusive education must be implemented which demands:

3.1. Strengthening its legislative base.

3.2. Realization of the Federal Program of reforming of regular schools and kindergartens to inclusive educational facilities with gradual transfer of part of children from corrective (special) schools to regular schools prepared for their studying.

3.3. Special Psychology-Pedagogical Centers must be established in every district with a task to help schools to implement the inclusive education.

3.4. Radical reforming of the presently quite formal work of the Psychology-Medico-Pedagogical commissions which work must be incorporated by the Law into the work of named in 3.3 above Special Psychology-Pedagogical Centers. (This will hopefully put an end to the abuse of misdiagnoses of mental disability for the ‘educational segregation’ purposes).

4. Realization of the “Dwelling Saving Belt” Program which main priorities are:

4.1. Creation of the socially important fund of apartments with immediate measure of the state long-term rent of apartments from private owners. (This immediate measure is motivated by the helpless dwelling situations of thousands of homeless orphans, of many-children families, of families with disabled children, etc.).

4.2. Realization of the Federal Program of the quick industrial construction of the ‘rent houses’ available to the families with low income (those are most families with children); social grants assisting the rent by the socially vulnerable groups. There are all conditions necessary for development of this Program: building plots equipped with needed infrastructure; quick-construction industry; money of potential investors. To realize the Program only the top Political Will is needed.

4.3. Responsibility of the federal budget of Russian Federation for the rent-assisting grants for the vulnerable children and families with children not possessing permanent residence.

5. Nutrition of poor children and pregnant mothers. 

Realization of the Federal Program ‘Food for Poor’ which incorporates in particular:

- opening of food markets for Russian farmers;

- introduction of the ‘food cards’ for poor.

6. Available kindergartens and nurseries. The measures to reach this goal: 

- again (like in Proposal 4.2 above) creation of the favorable conditions for quick industrial construction of kindergartens;

- developing of a system of certified ‘home nurses’;

- establishing by the Law of the essential responsibility, up to resignation, of officials responsible for the ‘eternal’ Waiting Lists to kindergartens.

7. Juvenile courts. Adoption of the laws which introduce special juvenile courts into the Court System of Russian Federation.

8. Geographical disparity. Adoption of the amendments to the Federal Act # 122 from 2004 which restore – in correspondence with Constitution of Russian Federation – the social responsibilities of the federal center, including the establishment of the federal standards of social services.

Attachment:
To the “Alternative Report – 2013” by the Coalition of Russian NGOs - Comments to Russia’s State "Consolidated fourth and fifth periodic report of the Russian Federation on the implementation of the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child" (SR-4&5 [Footnote 1]) 

[Footnote 1] SR-4&5 – State Russia’s Consolidated fourth and fifth Periodic Report on the implementation of the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child; 
AR-2013 – Russian NGOs “Alternative Report – 2013” – comments to SR-4&5; 
CO-3 – September 2005 CRC’s Concluding Observations to the Third Russia’s Report to CRC.

February 2013 

Comments by the Coalition of Russian NGOs to the Russia’s fulfillment of the 
“Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child: Russian Federation”, 
CRC/C/15/Add.274, adopted at the 1080-th meeting, 30 September 2005 

Comments to “C. Principal subjects of concern, suggestions and recommendations”

C.1. GENERAL MEASURES OF IMPLEMENTATION

a) To the Art. 7, 8 of the Concluding Observations (CO-3). Coalition of Russia NGOs again regrets together with Committee that some of the concerns and recommendations repeated in CO-3 after CO-2 (CRC/C/15/Add.126) have not been sufficiently addressed, inter alia those concerning children with disabilities, non-discrimination (in particular discrimination of children and families with children - citizens of Russia not possessing permanent residence registration is at hand), administration of juvenile justice, etc. as well as have not been sufficiently addressed some of concerns and recommendations made in CO-3 (CRC/C/15/Add.274), inter alia those concerning geographical disparity between Russian regions and absence of national standards, absence of the coordinating entity for the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, absence of mechanism to collect data within the national statistical system on vulnerable children, absence of system of preventing measures to avoid separation of children from their family environment, absence of mechanisms for independent public inspections of children’s institutions, absence of the inclusive education, absence of standards of living guaranteeing the right of children from economically disadvantaged families for adequate housing and nutrition.

Corporal punishment in schools and institutions is strictly prohibited in Russia by the Law. There is no law prohibiting it in the family, as well as there is no long awaited law “On preventing the violence in the Family”. At the same time Criminal Code of Russia assumes essential punishment for cruel treatment and violence against children in the family although this is difficult to apply. As to the physical or sexual violence, torture and abuse – the new Body, Investigation Committee of Russian Federation (IC RF) established in 2006, has a special task to reveal and to investigate these violations of rights of children in families, in institutions or in police. Information regularly given by IC RF is shocking, the problem is in the absence of social system of early prevention and of rehabilitation. Another tool to reveal these violations of rights is Office of the Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights established in September 2009.

b) To the Art. 9, 10 of CO-3. No comprehensive analysis of the consequences of the decentralization foreseen by Federal Law No. 122 of 2004 in order to prevent disparities in enjoinment and protection of children’s rights were undertaken and no national minimal social standards for the enjoyment of rights of children in the context of the decentralization were implemented.

c) To the Art. 11, 12 (“Coordination”). No coordinating entity for the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child was established yet.

Meanwhile absence of effective interdepartmental coordination in fulfilling the individual social restoring work with vulnerable children or families with children is a long term and yet unresolved problem in Russia. The special Commission on Creation of the Coordinating Body in the Field of Protection of Children’s Rights with participation of representatives of Civil Society was formed in Administration of President of Russia in 2010 under chair of the Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights. Commission worked during a year. The drafts of needed documents elaborated by this Commission on the basis of the best practices of coordination in Russian regions were presented to President Dmitry Medvedev in December 2010. It resulted in President’s Order, confirmed in January-February 2011 by the targeted Decisions by that time Head of the Government Vladimir Putin and by the Security Council of Russian Federation, to transform the so called Government’s Commission on Affairs of Minors and Protection of their Rights (GCAM) into the wishful Coordinating Body. According to these Decisions Chair of GCAM became Vice-Premier on Social Questions (earlier it was of lower position Minister of Interior). However no other steps to strengthen GCAM as coordinating entity were performed in 2 years after these Decisions. In particular until now only one member of the Ministry of Education and Science works for GCAM between its rear meetings. 

However the important outcome of this activity was the Federal Act # 297 signed by President Putin on 30 December 2012. This Act strengthened the coordinating function of the local commissions on affairs of minors and protection of their rights, and according to this Act the new Regulations on this commissions must be elaborated to the 1 of April 2013 (at present the work of these commissions is regulated by the 1967 document of Soviet times). Hopefully those are the real steps to overcome the traditional departmental disparity in the work with vulnerable children and families with children and to create the coordinating system of protection of children’s rights. 

d) To the Art. 13, 14 (“Independent Monitoring Structures”). On the 1 September 2009 President Dmitry Medvedev issued the Decree on establishing the position/office of the Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights. See in more detail AR-2013: comments to item 42 of SR-4&5. 

e) To the Art. 15, 16 (“National Plan of Action / Coordination”). On the 1 June 2012 President of Russia Vladimir Putin approved with his President’s Decree the ‘National Strategy of Actions in the Interests of Children for 2012-2017’. This fundamental document which covers practically all areas of the Convention was prepared in 2011-2012 in the Council of Federation (Upper Chamber of Russian Parliament) with involvement of plenty of children’s rights NGOs and experts. With the same Decree President Putin ordered to the Government “to elaborate to the 1 September 2012 the Plan of Immediate Actions for realization of priorities and goals of the National Strategy”. This Plan of Immediate Actions was finally approved by the Government on 15 October 2012, but paradoxically it ignored most of practical proposals by Civil society institutions and children’s rights experts and did not contain any ‘immediate actions’ but just repeated the goals of the National Strategy referring their realization to the future ‘Reports to President of Russian Federation’. 

At the same time, beginning from June 2012 and until now, the huge so called “anti-juvenile” campaign was developed against the National Strategy, 141 thousand signatures were collected in September 2012 all over Russia under Appeal to President Putin to stop the implementation of National Strategy because it follows “Western juvenile principles which are alien to Russian traditions and which threaten Russian families and Russian parents in favor of abstract rights of children”. The same campaign attacked the draft laws on Public Inspectorate of Children’s Institutions (see item ‘n’ Comments to Art. 44-45 of CO-3), on restoring work with vulnerable families, on juvenile courts (item ‘t’, Comments to Art. 84-86), and widely – it declared as ‘subversive’ the priorities of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is sad to say that Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights made his important contribution to this ‘Anti-West’ bias.

The background of popularity of this campaign is in the wide population’s fright of losing their children since they see the everyday destroying of families under pretext of protection of children’s rights by the tutorship and guardianship bodies and by subsequent deprivation of parental rights by the Courts’ Decisions. Organizers of this ‘Anti-Juvenile’ campaign ignore that right of the child for the family is among the main priorities of the Convention and that Russia’s practice of destroying families is flourishing because Russia does not follow CRC’s recommendations to introduce ‘preventing measures to avoid separation of children from their family environment’. On 9 February 2013 the big “All-Russia Parents’ Meeting” of the leaders of this “Anti-Juvenile” movement was unexpectedly visited by President Vladimir Putin who in his 15-minutes Talk expressed his consent with the goals of the movement. Thus the future of the National Strategy of Actions in the Interests of Children for 2012-2017 is now unclear. The same may be said about the draft laws on juvenile courts and on independent public inspectorate of children’s institutions (items ‘n’, ‘t’ below).

f) To the Art. 19, 20 (“Resources for children”). No measures were undertaken so far to “ensure a balanced distribution of income throughout the country in order to prevent unjustifiable disparities in availability and access of social and other services for children” (quotation from CO-3). The difficulties in taking remedies against geographical regional disparity introduced by the Federal Law # 122 from the August 2004 are in parallel with difficulties in creation of the national coordinating entity for implementation of the Convention. 

g) To the Art. 20 (“Resources for Children”) and Art. 62, 63 (“Adequate standard of living”). No effective measures are undertaken “to ensure implementation of the economic, social and cultural rights of children, in particular belonging to economically disadvantaged groups” (CO-3, Art. 20). And ‘economically disadvantaged group’ is 54.6 per cent of Russian families with children which income per capita is below the subsistence level (SR-4&5, Art. 191). Because of it free of charge culture, sport etc. groups are dramatically underdeveloped, most of children from the families with law income have no access to these services. 

No “targeted programs with regard to the most vulnerable groups of families in order to guarantee the right of all children to an adequate standard of living” (CO-3, Art. 63) were undertaken. And according to the Art. 191 of SR-4&5 the number of poorest (‘most vulnerable’) families with children (‘poorest’ means that per capita income of the family is less than half the subsistence level) is 65.9 per cent of all poor families with children.

The main problems of poor families with children, including many-children families, are inadequate housing and nutrition living conditions. And special problem raised at the Hearings in State Duma (Lower Chamber of Parliament) on 4-th February 2013 is the regular birth of weak and deceased babies because of malnutrition of their mothers during 9 months of pregnancy. But there are hopes for future: 

- Minister of Agriculture of Russia Nikolai Fedorov declared (February 2013) that the Program of Social Nutrition for Poor will be realized in Russia beginning from 2015; 

- President of Russia Vladimir Putin signed on 7 May 2012 Decree # 600 which demands the realization of program of the wide-scale building of the cheap-rent houses.

See in more detail AR-2013: comments to Art. 15, 16 of the SR-4&5.

C.2. GENERAL PRINCIPLES

h) To the Art. 24 (“Non-discrimination”). Children and their parents which do not possess / lost the permanent residence registration are essentially discriminated in plenty of their rights, including the right for dwelling guaranteed by the Constitution of Russia Federation. The deep reason of this discrimination is the Federal Law # 122 from 2004 which turned all responsibility for social wellbeing from the Russian Federation to its constituent entities (regions of Russian Federation – cf. items ‘a’, ‘b’ above on disparity because of the Federal Law # 122). Hence the citizen of Russia, including child, who ‘is not attached’ to any region with their permanent residence registration is essentially discriminated in his/her rights. In particular these citizens or families can not be included in any regional program of improvement of housing conditions and there are no federal programs of this type.

It must be added that according to the new Civil Code and Housing Code of Russian Federation from 2005 the owner of the dwelling is given right to sell it “together with” permanently registered inhabitants, including children, even including the owner’s own children after divorce with their mother (or father) who is not the owner of dwelling, - without providing any alternative dwelling. In this cases these inhabitants, including children, including pregnant women…, are deprived by the Courts of the right to live in the sold dwelling and are deprived of their permanent residence registration there – hence they must ‘go to the street’ (in practice to the extremely expensive rented private dwelling) and enter the discriminated group described above.

i) To the Art. 28, 29 (“Right to life”). The new Body established in 2006 - the Investigation Committee of Russian Federation has a special task to investigated all heavy crimes against children, including infanticide, sexual violence etc. Active work of this Body during 6 years revealed the system problem: incapability of Russian social system to provide necessary preventive measures. Investigation Committee reports that because of it there are many cases on infanticide or child suicide when all responsible local authorities knew well about difficult situation abuse or cruel treatment in the family or institution and did not take any preventive measures during even year or longer. 

At present the new Law “On the Foundations of Social Service in Russian Federation” is drafted in close cooperation of Ministry of Labor and Social Protection, of Civic Chamber of Russia and of NGOs – members of the “Alternative Report - 2013” Coalition in particular. Hopefully this Law will turn Russian social system to preventive work (see in more detail in AR-2013: comments to items 54 and 183 of SR-4&5). 

j) To the Art. 28, 29 (“Respect for the Views of the Child”). “Participation of the Children” – this is the Title of one of five Chapters of the ‘National Strategy of Actions in the Interests of Children for 2012-2017’ approved by President Vladimir Putin on 1 June 2012. However the future of this National Strategy is unclear at the moment – see item ‘e’ above. 

C.3. CIVIL RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS

k) To the Art. 32-37 (“Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Corporal punishment”). As it was said in items ‘a’, ‘i’ above the Investigation Committee of Russian Federation has a special task to reveal and investigate the cases under consideration and to prosecute and sanction those committing acts of torture, violence, inhumane or degrading treatment against children. 

However the programs for the recovery and social reintegration of the victims are still in the stage of planning and are not implemented yet.

Also the mechanisms for children to file complaints are essentially underdeveloped and are of the local pilot nature. In fact these mechanisms must be an element of the preventing and recovering social system which perhaps will be built soon – see item ‘i’. 

About corporal punishment see item ‘a’ above. 

C.4. FAMILY ENVIRONMENT AND ALTERNATIVE CARE 

l) To the Art. 38, 39 (“Children deprived of their family environment”). On 10 May 2006 in his Annual Appeal to Parliament that time President of Russia Vladimir Putin made and Order to Government and Heads of Russian regions: “To elaborate mechanisms which permit to decrease the number of children living in institutions”; he also ordered to increase essentially payments to foster parents. (It must be noted that “Alternative Report - 2005” was given to President Putin personally in Kremlin on 4 November 2005 and later not a once main priorities of the CRC’s Concluding Observations were reported to him). Additional Budget allocations were included in the Federal Budget – 2007 and in subsequent years for the increased payments to foster parents. 

However first President’s Order “to elaborate mechanisms…” was not fulfilled and more of that – Federal Act # 48 of 24 April 2008 On Tutorship and Guardianship strictly prohibited the best practice of active deinstitutionalization developed in Russian regions in 2000-2008 (see AR-2013: comments to item 22 of SR-4&5). Now the same Order ‘to create mechanisms…’ was repeated by President Putin in his Decree # 1688 from 28 December 2012: “Government and Heads of regions must create mechanisms of the legal, organizational and psychology-pedagogical support of citizens who decided to be a substitute parents for orphaned child.” 

m) To the Art. 40-43 (“Adoption”). The secrecy of adoption is still there being established by the Law and being protected by the Criminal Code of Russia; and there is no Law which makes it obligatory to open fact of his/her adoption to the child. 

The system of accreditation of foreign adoption agencies was created and works successfully. 

About Russia-USA Agreement on adoption and subsequent ban of adoption to USA see AR-2013: comments to item 125-129 of SR-4&5.

n) To the Art. 44-45 (“Periodic review of placement”). See AR-2013: comments to items 132-133 of SR-4&5. 

C.5. BASIC HEALTH AND WELFARE 

o) To the Art. 49-50 (“Children with disabilities”). The discrimination of children with disabilities is still there in Russia. This means:
- Educational segregation, not inclusive, but exclusive approach: child who can not cope with obligatory program automatically, according to the Law, is moved to special classes or special boarding school; the worst educational discrimination is practiced in social internats for mentally disabled children where there are about 20.000 inmates and which are not educational facilities at all.

- Lack of assistance at home and easy placement to Boarding schools and internats.

- Lack of accessible environment

In more detail see AR-2013: comments to items 144-157 of SR-4&5. 

C.6. EDUCATION, LEISURE AND CULTURAL ACTIVITIES 

p) To the Art. 64, 65. New Law “On Education in Russian Federation” was adopted in January 2013. It bears some new priorities which potentially open possibilities for development of inclusive education and for improvement of vocational training. However it is a long way to implement in practice the good priorities of this Law. 

On the other hand Article 65 of this Law states the 4-5 times increase of parent’s payments for the care of child in kindergartens which is a strong blow to Russia’s demography situation and will deprive millions of children of pre-school education which is guaranteed by the same Law. On the problems of pre-school education see also AR-2013: Comments to Art. 15-16 of SR-4&5. 

Commercialization of leisure (different developing and sport) activities made them unaffordable for millions of children from economically disadvantaged families which are incapable to pay for this work with their children (the data on poverty see in item 191 of SR-4&5 and in AR-2013: comments to items 15, 16 of SR-4&5). 

C.7. SPECIAL PROTECTION MEASURES

r) To the Art. 74-77 (“Street children”, “Drug abuse”). The measures taken during last years practically eliminated the problem of the homeless street children. However there are plenty of children without necessary care who spent in the streets the essential part of their life. The numbers are not fixed but the measures needed to improve the situation are evident: to reorganize social system and social facilities to the assistance to families with children in difficult life situation (the grounds to hope for improvement are in the draft law “On the Foundations of Social Service in Russia Federation”, cf. items ‘i’ ‘o’), to make leisure activities affordable for all (see item ‘p’), etc. 

The same may be said about drug abuse among children. The dramatic absence of the social preventing work changing to better and more interesting all environment of life of the child makes the problem of drug addiction of minors more and more acute. 

s) To the Art. 78, 79 (“Sexual exploitation and sexual abuse”). As it was said, in 2006 the Investigation Committee of Russia Federation (ICRF) was founded, which task among others is to investigate all cases of sexual violence or abuse of children. The reports presented by ICRF are shocking, its work reveals the huge scale of the problem. The difficulties in the work of investigators:

- absence of cooperation with social system capable to fulfill the preventive work or to assit in rehabilitation of victims of sexual violence and sexual abuse;

- dramatic lack of expert laboratories capable to make quick analyses needed for impartial investigation.

t) To the Art. 84-86 (“Administration of juvenile justice”). The pilot experience of introduction of juvenile courts in Russia developed, and there were special Decisions of Supreme Court of Russia from the 1 February 2011 in favor of developing of juvenile justice. However in October 2010 State Duma again declined in the Second Reading the Laws proclaiming introduction of juvenile courts in the Courts’ System of Russian Federation and there were no attempts to pass these Laws after that. The political reason for this many years delay is the active ‘Anti-Juvenile’ movement with its strangely strong influence at Kremlin (see items ‘e’, ‘n’). 

Meanwhile suspended sentences and conditional release are applied more and more active which is a positive trend.

The permanent problem is in the incapability of the present Russian social system for social accompanying measures for minors – delinquents. As it was said above the grounds of hope for improvement may be in the new Law “On the Foundations of Social Service in Russian Federation” which draft was elaborated together with NGOs and Civic Chamber of Russia and which must be introduced to State Duma by the Government in March 2013.

C.9. FOLLOW-UP AND DISSEMINATION 

u) To the Art. 88, 89. Unfortunately in 2005 – 2012 there were no special events in the Government or Parliament where recommendations of CO-3 were discussed. Also they were never discussed in provincial (regional) Governments or Parliaments. The basic reason for this indifference is the absence in Russian Federation the Federal coordinating entity (body) responsible for implementation of Convention on the Rights of the Child, cf. item ‘c’. 

Fax: (41-22) 917-0118. 

Russian NGOs’ “Alternative Report – 2013” 

Comments to the State "Consolidated fourth and fifth periodic report of the Russian Federation on the implementation of the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child" 

Accompanying Letter 

Dear Sirs/Madams, 

According to the Article 45(a) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child we - Russian non-governmental organizations working in the interests of children - submit to the Committee on the Rights of the Child this “Alternative Report – 2013” - Comments to the State “Consolidated fourth and fifth periodic report of the Russian Federation on the implementation of the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child”, which covers the period 2003-2009. However in this “Alternative Report – 2013” we included comments to the important events of 2010-2013 and following the structure and logic of the State Report tried to enlighten the updated situation. 

We confirm the permission to distribute the “Alternative Report – 2013” in any open for public way, including electronic database of NGO reports that have been submitted to the Committee on the Rights of the Child. And of course members of the Committee may refer to this source during their discussion with the Government of Russia. “Alternative Report – 2013” will be published in Russian original soon and will be distributed among responsible official departments and personalities and also among public. The members of the Coalition plan to participate in the Working group meeting with members of the Committee on the Rights of the Child. 

In addition to the “Alternative Report – 2013” we prepared Comments to fulfilment by Russian Federation of the CRC’s Concluding Observations – 2005 (CRC/C/15/Add.274) (attached below). 

The same as it was done in previous Alternative Reports in 1998 and 2005 we conclude the “Alternative Report – 2013” with a Chapter “Our Proposals of Reforms” which collects in a concise form the basic ideas elaborated during last years by plenty of NGOs - those are NGOs from many regions of Russia united in the Coordinating Council of NGOs on Affairs of Children with Disabilities, unions of many-children families, All-Russia Movement “For Affordable Pre-School Education for Russian Children”, etc. 

We tried to do our best to follow the “Main points” of CRC Guide for NGO reporting. 

On behalf of NGOs - authors of the “Alternative Report – 2013” (List of the Coalition is attached): 

Boris Altshuler, 

- Head of the “Right of the Child” NGO, 
- Member of the Civic Chamber of Russia – Deputy Chair of the Commission on Social Politics, 
- Chairperson of the Coordinating Council of NGOs on Affairs of Children with Disabilities, 
- Coordinator of Section on Protection of Children’s Rights in the Expert Council of Ombudsman on Human Rights of the Russian Federation, 
- Member of Coordinating Council of the All-Russian Union of NGOs working in the interests of children “Civil Society – for Children of Russia”, 
- Member of the Moscow Helsinki Group