Migrants are required to be equalized in kindergarten rights – Kommersant

The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation accepted for consideration the claim of an Afghan citizen, Sultan Rezi, challenging the need to register his child at the place of residence in Russia for placement in a kindergarten. Such a document must be submitted to kindergartens and schools in accordance with the order of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation, however, apartment owners refuse to register refugees, labor migrants and other foreigners. Representatives of Sultan Rezi believe that registration requirements limit the rights of children to education and are contrary to Art. 43 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation.

The lawsuit of Sultan Rezi was filed on May 2 with the Judicial Collegium of the Supreme Court (SC) for Administrative Cases. A citizen of Afghanistan disputes clause 9 of the “Procedure for admission to study in educational programs of preschool education” (approved by order No. 236 of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation in May 2020). This paragraph lists the information and documents that parents must submit when enrolling a child in a school or kindergarten. Among them are the birth certificate of the child (if his parents are citizens of the Russian Federation) and a certificate of registration at the place of residence. The applicant in the Supreme Court demands to cancel the last requirement as illegal, contrary to the Constitution of the Russian Federation and restricting the right of children to education.

The Civic Assistance Committee (dealing with assistance to migrants; included in the register of foreign agents) said that they were approached by the family of Sultan Rezi with a request to help arrange their son in a kindergarten in the capital. However, the family did not have registration, like many other refugees, human rights activists said: apartment owners often refuse to register it. Because of this, applications submitted by refugees to kindergartens are canceled or “the child remains registered, which in fact means an indefinite wait,” Civic Assistance added. They explained that families of foreigners face similar problems when they try to arrange their children in Russian schools. Civic Assistance also believes that the requirement to register foreign children violates the principle of equal conditions for the admission of students, guaranteed by the federal law “On Education” and Art. 43 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, which guarantees the general availability and free of charge of preschool and secondary education.

Back in 2021, Civic Assistance issued a report on the inaccessibility of children without Moscow registration to study in the capital’s schools. The “filter”, the authors of the report claimed, was created at the stage of applying for admission to a school through the mos.ru website, where it is required to indicate the address of official registration in the city. Civic Assistance has been challenging this procedure since 2017. At the time of the report’s release, human rights defenders were following up on 55 school enrollment denial cases; five claims for violation of the rights of a total of 12 children were satisfied. But when the court demanded a re-examination of the enrollment issue, the family is again asked to register, human rights activists complained in 2021. At the same time, parents’ associations emphasized that the problem concerns not only the children of migrants, but also citizens of the Russian Federation who came to the capital from other regions. The Moscow Department of Education, in turn, referred to the registration requirements introduced by the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation. Finally, the educational department insisted that education in Russia is available to everyone, while schools and teachers “do not and cannot check the legality of a person’s stay in the country.”

The head of Civic Assistance, Svetlana Gannushkina, called Kommersant’s lawsuit against the Supreme Court “very important”: “The fact that children of foreigners go to kindergartens is useful not only for themselves and their families, but also for society as a whole. Children enter the culture, the language, and even if they then leave Russia, they become sources of culture and all the good that we have.”

The hearing on the claim of Sultan Rezi in the Supreme Court is scheduled for June 28.

Alexander Voronov