Minister of Education Vasilyeva spoke out against restrictions on the number of children in foster families

The head of the Ministry of Education, Olga Vasilyeva, opposed limiting the number of children in foster families to three, Interfax reports . She also stated that the draft law, which had previously appeared in the media, had not been agreed upon with her.

“I am categorically against the quantitative reduction to three children specified in the draft. <...> This is the wrong approach, and it, like the entire document, was not agreed upon either with me or with the Ministry of Education, whose composition is being formed,” Vasilyeva said. She emphasized that this paragraph will be excluded from the document because it is “incorrect and biased.”

According to the minister, the document was drawn up by the already disbanded Ministry of Education and Science of Russia and was sent to the regions to collect opinions. Olga Vasilyeva assured that the text of the bill will be submitted for discussion to the expert community.

At the same time, the minister confirmed the department’s intentions to tighten the requirements for adoptive parents and for those who permanently live with an orphan - in particular, a mandatory psychological examination will be introduced. The proposals are related to the analysis of cases of violence and murder of children in foster families.

Previously, Vasilyeva said that the permissible number of children adopted or placed under guardianship at the same time would be reduced: “Now we have a norm of up to eight children, [but a family cannot be] like a kindergarten or a family orphanage.”

Last weekend, foster parents from all over Russia launched a flash mob on social networks with the hashtag #fourth_not_superfluous after the authorities proposed limiting the permissible number of children in their care to three. People talked about what the future would have been for these children if the law had already been in effect.

“Most likely they would repeat the fate of their parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents: correctional boarding school, vocational school, alcohol, prison, their children in an orphanage, complete inability to adapt to life,” wrote Yulia Roshchina from Magadan about her five adopted children.

According to the Ministry of Education, there are 48 thousand profiles in the data bank of orphans, while about 50 thousand people are deprived of parental rights every year.

In November 2017, the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia (later divided into the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science - TD's note) began preparing a bill that would introduce mandatory psychological testing for candidates for adoptive parents, and also establish minimum housing requirements for guardians.

Cases Like This asked experts about the wave of criminal cases against adoptive parents: can forensic examinations be wrong and why are witch hunts preventing the real problem from being dealt with - domestic violence?