Dear Mikhail Yuryevich,

As President of Consortium of Women's Nongovernmental Associations and member of the RF President's Human Rights Commission, I've had several meetings with you to discuss the pensions reform. You agreed that a number of proposed provisions needed to be amended, since they violated women's rights and were of discriminatory nature. Currently the pensions reform is being reviewed again. As far as I know, now periods of maternity and child care leave again will be included in the work record used to calculate pension size, but their total duration is limited to three years' time. This solution to the problem remains discriminatory.

First, it limits women's right to a free choice regarding childbirth, to have as many children as they please.

Second, in the situation of demographic crisis in Russia, when all government agencies and public structures without exception urge people to have more children and some politicians even demand to ban abortion, this provision in effect introduces an indirect economic population control measure. It forces women to choose a particular reproduction model - in this case, no more than two children, with eighteen months' maternity and child care leave for each of them. This approach is in direct contradiction with the official demographic policy.

Thirdly, this approach - intentionally or unintentionally - shows lack of respect to the socially important labour connected with bearing, giving birth to and raising children. The minimum length of work record required to receive basic pension is 5 years. Even the majority of tramps can boast that much. And a mother with several children is not credited more than 3 years of work record. And at the same time the state wants her to give birth and raise children, and then send them to protect the Motherland or work for its prosperity. It's plain hypocrisy!

2) Instead of women themselves making payments to accumulative pension fund for the above periods, the plan now is for the state budget to provide the money, to be used by the women after they retire. This solution may be quite legitimate and can somewhat level up the pension sizes. However, I'd appreciate if you could formulate this provision very clearly, and more importantly put it in such a way, it would show respect to women's motherhood function. Women must see that measures of this kind are not charity handouts or benefits, but recognition of motherhood as socially important labour.

These comments mention only the most important steps which must be taken to stop discrimination during the implementation of pensions reform.
Other kinds of discrimination which lead to low pensions to women are connected with unjustifiably low pay for women's labour, especially in the public sector. Thus women have no hope that giving birth to children would give them a chance to a decent life in future, after they retire.

We also must look at the pensions reform in the general context of social policy. The pension law is not the only one which doesn't contribute to overcoming the demographic crisis, and increasing not just the number of children but their quality too.
In the situation when the child benefits are low, many women who live on the verge of poverty (or have already crossed that line), suffer from anemia during their maternity leave and give birth to weakened children. It's not possible to raise and cure them on 70 roubles a month (the amount of child benefit). As a result, the proportion of our young men unfit for draft is increasing, as well as proportions of physically weakened and illiterate people. Thus is a direct result of our state's social policy.

Dear Mikhail Yuryevich,

Russian women cannot accept this attitude to their labour at the workplace and carrying out their motherhood function. We insist this provision of the pensions reform must be changed, and ask you to take into account the need to introduce constructive changes to our country's social policy in your future work.

Regards,
E.N. Ershova,
President of All-Russian association
"Consortium of Women's Nongovernmental Associations",
member of the RF President's Human Rights Commission