professionalism among staff at the migration authorities and the Federal Bailiffs Service, and Russia’s
failure to implement the ECHR judgment on the case of Kim and adopt general measures to change laws
and enforcement practices.
35. Of particular concern is the situation for women held in CTDFNs. These include pregnant women (CTDFNs
are not equipped to provide adequate maternity care), mothers separated from minor children (who are
held in separate children’s institutions), and survivors of sexual exploitation (whose complaints are not
investigated and without any access to specialist support).
36. The RF Code of Administrative Offences bans the administrative detention of pregnant women and
mothers whose children are under the age of 14 (Article 3.9(2)). However, many foreign women who are
pregnant or mothers of young children and who have been sentenced to expulsion are regularly deprived
of their freedom and confined in CTDFNs for a period of up to two years. This practice discriminates
against women who are not Russian nationals and violates the RF Constitution, which establishes equal
rights for citizens and non-citizens.
37. Migrant and stateless women, including pregnant women, may spend extended period in mixed CTDFNs,
which are completely lacking in even the most basic conditions to ensure their health, safety and dignity,
without any judicial oversight. There is minimal gender segregation in mixed centres envisioned as shortterm holding facilities for men, which lack even minimal conditions for supporting pregnant women,
children, and, even more so, new-borns and nursing mothers. They do not provide adequate nutrition,
nor access to even the most basic maternity care27, let alone specialist support for survivors of sexual or
gender based violence; they do not have dining halls, leisure rooms, exercise areas or libraries;
washrooms and toilet facilities are inadequate, there is nowhere to wash clothes, they do not provide
soap or feminine hygiene items nor is there anywhere to purchase them; detainees are kept in total
information isolation without access to legal aid or specialist support or advocacy.
38. The CTDFNs remains closed institutions that are not transparent for external monitoring. It has been
difficult for Human Rights defenders to monitor detention conditions in CTDFNs, and it was only in
February 2015 that Public Monitoring Commissions (PMC) were granted the right to visit these
institutions.28 There are many documented cases of local PMCs being denied access to inspect CTDFNs.
Stateless children in special institutions
39. In Russia, there is a system of special institutions for migrant and stateless children who are found
without parental care or who have been separated from parents or relatives recognised as “violators of
migration rules”. Stateless children in such circumstances are placed in orphanages and granted Russian
citizenship, sometimes despite the fact that they have parents who are stateless. While the provision of
nationality to these children can be seen as a positive, the forcible separation from their parents and
their placement in orphanages is in clear contravention of principles of the best interests of the child,
family unity and non-discrimination, as well as liberty and security of the child.
27
Resolution of the RF Government of 30 December 2013 No. 1306, which regulates the provision of medical aid in CTDFNs, does
not prescribe that these institutions should have doctors, so in the best cases they have only feldshers (or paramedics).
28 With the coming into force of the Amendments to Federal Law of 10 June 2008 No. 76-FZ “On Public Oversight of the Guarantee
of Human Rights in Detention Facilities and on Assistance to Individuals Held in These Facilities”.
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