Overview
- Moscow’s children’s rights commissioner Olga Yaroslavskaya publicly proposed lowering the legal working age to 12 and reopening Soviet‑style youth labour camps as supervised holiday work, comments reported on Friday.
- The plan is only a public proposal and would require changes to federal law because current Russian rules let children work from 14 with parental consent and sign contracts at 15.
- Yaroslavskaya justified the idea by saying many teenagers want summer work and by citing her own experience in Soviet youth camps, while framing camps as providing structure and pay for families that cannot afford childcare.
- Business groups and analysts estimate Russia needs roughly 1.5 million to 3 million more workers, a gap the coverage links to mobilisation, up to about one million emigrants who left to avoid the draft, heavy military casualties and low birth rates.
- The suggestion sits alongside other state moves to shape youth, such as a mandatory patriotic summer reading list, and could raise legal, child‑welfare and economic questions if it moves from proposal to policy.