Dateline: Nov 26
Dateline looks at Russia’s new law banning the promotion of homosexuality to minors and calls for a ban on the Sochi Winter Olympics.
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This week Dateline looks at Russia’s new law banning the promotion of homosexuality to minors and calls for a ban on the Sochi Winter Olympics.
Earlier this year, a new national law was passed in Russia that banned the promotion of homosexuality to minors.
Russia’s new anti-gay law now makes it illegal to support gay rights publicly, distribute material related to gay rights and normalise homosexual relationships to children.
This week on Dateline, Kim Traill speaks with Nikolai and Irina, best friends who are now making plans to flee Russia.
Ten months ago, Nikolai became the unofficial godfather to Irina’s son, Gavriel. Nikolai is in a homosexual relationship, making it illegal for him to adopt a child of his own.
According to Russia’s new law, Nikolai could be charged with exposing Gavriel to so-called ‘propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations.’
“It means that if I allow my son to be with homosexuals, according to the laws of our Russian federation, I am propagandising homosexuality” Irina tells Dateline.
“For example, you explain to your child that a single sex relationship is normal, then from their point of view you could bring harm to your child and they could take away your parental rights.” Nikolai also tells Dateline.
Although same-sex relationships were decriminalised in Russia during the mid-nineties, Russia’s strict new law is showing increased rates of suicide amongst the gay community, growing cases of HIV, with the distribution of condoms declared “propaganda”, and homophobic hate crimes on the rise.
In the coming months, the world’s athletes will descend on Sochi for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. There are now also fears that gay athletes could face discrimination and criminal charges whilst in Russia, with some people calling for a boycott of the games.
Also on this week, Dateline follows the Cambodian garment workers fighting for better pay and conditions, plus the growing controversy over canned hunting in South Africa.
Tuesday, 26 November at 9.30pm on SBS ONE.
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4 Responses
I’ll be very interested to see where Ten position themselves with regards to this issue.
Should something happen it would be nice to see some support through the like of the ‘It Gets Better’ CSA etc
@jezz- you never see the protests in Africa because in many cases the penalty for homosexuality is death. Pretty big incentive to keep that one under wraps.
With regards to the story, it was great to see some in depth investigation into the reasoning behind the Russians passing these laws. The deep seated homophobia and the incorrect association with pedophilia is a disturbing trend.
Don’t underestimate Russia’s willingness to do things their own way. After watching this it was clear that they don’t plan to have other countries values impressed upon them
@ Armchair Analyst….. yeah I agree I don’t think Russia will do anything to cause themselves embarrassment during the games. They are surrounded by countries with similar or worse laws. It seems to be part of the culture in that region of the world. Most African countries and virtually every single Islamic country have very strong laws against gay folk, yet I never see too many protests against them. Qatar has the 2022 soccer world cup
i very much doubt that any Gay Athletes will be banned or be stripped of Medals or anything like that. for starters Russia does not have any juristiction or right to do that to non Russian Athletes at least. Also they wouldnt want the IOC to effectively and ironically ban them from bidding for the next summer or winter games in 20 or 40 years time. So i think Russia will play this very smartly.