Investigation of crimes committed against minors is one of priorities for the Investigative Committee, since the moment the Committee was established Chairman of the Committee Alexander Bastrykin tasked his personnel to respond quickly as well as to check and investigate into all occasions when children’s rights were violated in the most careful manner.
These are examples of some of the crimes committed against children and recently investigated. The case against Oleg Belov charged with brutally killing his mother, wife and six small children has been solved and referred to a court in the shortest time in Nizhny Novgorod Region. Following the order of the Chairman of the Investigative Committee the investigators have joined in the all-round and impartial investigation into causing injuries to a 7-year-old boy in Dobry Volshebnik rehabilitation center located in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area-Yugra. Former doctor of Maternity Hospital No 1 in the town of Tula Galina Sundeyeva has been convicted of negligence that caused grievous bodily harm – second and third-degree burns to a newborn boy and girl during phototherapy. In Krasnodar Territory, Svetlana Bastrich and her partner Valery Denisenko who left their seven small children alone at home and ordered them to light the stove have been convicted after the children aged between 1 year and 10 died. The Chairman of the Investigative Committee has taken under special control criminal proceedings against a debt collector from Ulyanovsk Region, who threw a Molotov cocktail into a window of a single-family house injuring a 56-year-old man and a 2-year-old child. At the moment the investigation is about to be finished. Mr. Bastrykin has arrived in Udmurtia to give the mother of 13-year-old Andrei Kasimov a medal “For rescuing the dying”: the boy gave his life protecting his 11-year-old sister against a rapist who is now serving a life sentence. In Kaliningrad Region, investigation is ongoing into negligence of the officials of the Pravdinsk District administration who failed to check properly the living conditions of two small children aged 9 and 13 years adopted by a 58-year-old local woman; the woman had systematically starved her adopted son for a long time. Regularly left him unattended, kept him in a cold room and treated him brutally; as a result the boy was admitted in a hospital with fourth-degree frostbite of 7 fingers and gangrene of two toes on the left foot. The ex-foster mother has been prosecuted for that.
Unfortunately, the number of underage victims does not decrease and in 2015 it reached almost 17,000, with over 4,600 children under 10 years of age. Almost 10.5 thousand cases over crimes committed against minors have been referred to courts, which is up by 25% against 2014. Out of that number 1,645 crimes are sexual violence and more than 5,300 sex abuses. Between January and March 2016, over 2,300 cases against over 2,500 individuals charged with crimes against minors were referred to court. Over that period 4,477 children were recognized as victims, while 477 children died during crimes in the first quarter of 2016.
It should be noted that the Investigative Committee does not confine itself to only prosecuting those guilty of such crimes. Special attention is paid to protect the rights of underage victims and their moral and mental rehabilitation. In the first quarter of 2016, 519 minors suffered from criminal assaults committed by their immediate relatives or family members, of them 322 crimes were committed by their parents. This is why there is ongoing work with problem families and if necessary annulment is initiated.
The Investigative Committee has joined in efforts to improve the laws in order to create more efficient mechanism to fight such crimes. A number of legislative measures were taken with the support of the investigative Committee. Chemical castration of pedophiles was introduced in 2012. Suspended sentences were cancelled for the individuals who have committed sex crimes against children under 14 years of age.
In addition, the Investigative Committee take vigorous measures to prevent crimes committed both minors and those committed by minors. Namely, the Investigative Committee works actively to revive cadetship in Russia. There are cadet classes in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Murmansk, Stavropol Territory, Khimki, Kemerovo, Vologda, Lipetsk, Oryol, Tver, Izhevsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Barnaul, Irkutsk, and Sebastopol under the patronage of the Investigative Committee. Those classes allow the children of the law-enforcement officers killed on duty, orphans and those left with no parental care, children of single parents and those coming from poor families or those with many children in them to develop harmoniously and in all-round manner.
At the same time the Investigative Committee patronizes 360 children’s facilities that hold over 20,000 children. Employees of the Emergency Ministry help to repair the healthcare facilities that treat children from poor or socially vulnerable families, they raise money for the children suffering from cancer and victims of crimes. They also help large families. This way, the annual charity marathon Children out of Politics organized by the charity foundation of children’s doctor Roshal (the foundation for medical and social aid and rehabilitation of children who sustained serious traumas and their consequences) with assistance of the Moscow Healthcare Department was held in Moscow on 24 April 2016 with the support of the Moscow Directorate of the Investigative Committee. The event was held to attract public attention to the problem of children’s traumas and to raise funds for their rehabilitation in the Children’s Surgery and Traumatology Research Institute. The staff of the Investigative Committee also care about the tragedy of the children who come from the southeast of Ukraine. The Committee has cooperated with the Doctor Roshal’s International Charity Foundation on helping children suffered in catastrophes and wars for a long period of time. The sum donated by the Committee’s employees last year reached almost 4.5 million rubles. The specialists of the Children’s Surgery and Traumatology Research Institute headed by Leonid Roshal were able under the charity program to help many children wounded during action thanks to that money among other.
Additionally, the Committee has the advisory council on helping orphans and children left without parental care, the coordination council on helping children from southeast Ukraine.
The Investigative Committee thanks journalists who direct our attention to the problems of minors. In future the agency is intended to continue improving protection of minors against crimes and be involved in prevention of such offences.
Head of Media Relations V.I. Markin
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