The Chechen Wedding A recent scandal surrounding the arranged marriage of a 57-year-old Chechen police chief and a 17-year-old school girl prompted heated media discussion on the legal marriage age and polygamy in Russia. The girl became the officer’s second wife, as permitted under the Muslim faith predominant in Chechnya. Despite the bride going on [...]
Russian Adoption Problems Another heartbreaking case of a Russian adoption that has gone terribly wrong is currently being judicially reviewed in the United States. Nassau County Surrogate Court has denied a request to join Russia and the United States as parties to an action over adoption of two Russian-born children who allegedly suffer from serious [...]
Changes to Saudi Arabia Family Law The Shura Council of Saudi Arabia might approve a new draft family law that would raise the age of marriage effectively prohibiting child marriage in the country. The draft law is currently pending approval by the Shura Council, the Consultative Assembly of Saudi Arabia. If adopted, the law will set the age of [...]
Russian Family Law on Same-Sex Marriages Despite the prohibition by the Russian law, the first same-sex marriage has been recently registered in Russia. 7 November 2014 Irina and Alyona officially married in Russia’s St. Petersburg. The brides arrived at the registry office (#ZAGS) both in wedding gowns holding flowers to sign the papers that marked [...]
The Number of Orphan Russian Children Falls, Changes to Russian Adoption Practices The number of orphan Russian children went down to 93,000 in 2014 from 119,000 orphans two years ago, after the government introduced changes to Russian adoption practices. The government stressed the following factors played the key role in this: the introduction of grants and [...]
Russian Divorce Rate Today Russia was rated the top divorcing nation by the UN closely followed by Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova. In modern Russia more than every second marriage fails. Comparative table of the crude Russian divorce rate [the number of divorces per 1,000 population] & the Divorce to Marriage Ratio country marriage divorce ratio year Russia 9.2 4.8 51 [...]
The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction 1980 came into force for Russia on 1 October 2011 and as at 30 September 2014 is operative between the Russian Federation and the following countries[i]: Andorra Argentina Armenia Belarus Bosnia and Herzegovina Brazil Bulgaria Chile China Colombia Croatia Czech Republic El Salvador Estonia Finland France [...]
The head of the lower house committee for family issues has described a new set of legislative amendments protecting the values shared by basic religions, and inspiring young people to choose marriage over cohabitation. MP Yelena Mizulina of the center-left Fair Russia party said that she opposed the complete rewriting of family laws, but urged [...]
Russia will establish special courts to adjudicate cases involving international child abduction cases, Deputy Minister for Education and Science Veneiamin Kaganov told RIA Novosti Monday. In 2011, Russia joined the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, which aims to facilitate the immediate retrieval of children unlawfully transported to any of the 87 member states of the Convention. [...]
The lawmakers in Russia are working on a set of amendments that would effectively ban single men from using the services of surrogate mothers, governmental daily Rossiskaya Gazeta reports on Tuesday. The amendments will include for instance, a provision which would prohibit manipulation of the resulting child’s gender, with the rare exception for gender-based genetic deficiencies. The proposed legislation [...]
