In 2019, the number of complaints filed with the children's ombudswoman grew by 27 percent to 8,661; the ombudswoman and her office received in person 28 percent more complaints than in 2018.
These complaints came from across the country. The top regions by the number of complaints were Moscow with 20.5 percent, the Moscow Region with 9.1 percent, the Krasnodar Territory with 5 percent, the Primorye Territory and St Petersburg with 2.8 percent each, the Rostov Region and the Sverdlovsk Region with 2.2 percent each, the Krasnoyarsk Territory and the Republic of Bashkortostan with 1.6 percent each, and the Chelyabinsk Region with 1.5 percent.
Key subjects of these complaints included: the right to legal protection and qualified legal advice, the right to housing, the right to live and grow up in a family, the right to education, the right to health protection, the right to social security, etc.
The ombudswoman placed special emphasise on the substantial increase – by almost 88 percent – in the number of complaints regarding the protection of health of minors. Most of these were related to the timely provision of medicine, challenges encountered when undergoing medical and social assessment, and the quality of medical services in the regions.
The number of favourable decisions issued following the review of complaints by the ombudswoman increased 2.2-fold in 2019.
Among other things, as a result of inspections carried out, more than 1,000 children in orphanages received assistance. The ombudswoman was personally involved in returning more than 120 Russian children from the Republic of Iraq and the Syrian Arab Republic, and protecting their rights and legitimate interests.
The report also sets out recommendations to federal executive bodies and regional government bodies of the Russian Federation on ways to improve the state policy on protecting families, motherhood, fatherhood and children in the Russian Federation.