Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law banning the adoption of Russian children by citizens living in countries where gender transitioning is legal on November 23, according to according to The Associated Press.
The law is one of a series of anti-LGBTQ+ bills that the Russian government has pushed aimed at promoting traditional values and increasing the birth rate, which has been historically low.
The adoption ban would apply to at least 15 countries, some in Europe as well as Australia, Canada, and Argentina. Americans have been banned from adopting Russian children since 2012.
Newsweek has reached out to the Russian government for comment via email outside of business hours.
Application of the adoption ban in some countries may be complex as there are countries like the U.S. which prohibit gender transition care in some areas, but not others.
According to the Council of Europe’s 2024 report, 26 countries have “partial access” to gender transitioning care, while access is mostly restricted in 14 countries.
The report also details that European countries including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden have policies in place to allow residents to pursue gender transitioning care without “unreasonable requirements.”
One of the authors of the new bill, Russian lower house speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, previously said, “It is extremely important to eliminate possible dangers in the form of gender reassignment that adopted children may face in these countries.”
Another one of the bills approved on Saturday included punishment for those who promote a “childless lifestyle,” which includes fines of up to 5 million rubles (about $50,000), according to the Kyiv Independent.
The new legislation follows the Russian birth rate decreasing to 1.5 children per woman, where a birth rate of 2.1 children per woman is needed to sustain a population.
In order to combat the birth rate crisis, which has become more significant due to heavy losses of Russian troops in the war, the Russian government has pushed incentives including compensating female students aged 18 to 23 for having children while in school or encouraging Russian citizens to engage in sexual relations during breaks at work.
Russian lawmakers have also targeted gender transition pursuits within the country, as they enacted a ban on gender transition medical procedures last year and the country’s top court labeled the LGBTQ+ movement as “extremist.”
Putin has also banned all LGBTQ+ content with a law passed in 2022.
According to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ 2023 report, Russian experts approximate the number of Russian children adopted by U.S. citizens was 66,000 to 68,000.
The adoption of Russian children by foreign citizens has fallen since 2012, when the ban against U.S. citizens adopting Russian children was put in place, according to the Russian state news outlet TASS.
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