How authoritarian regimes are using women’s bodies for power

“The purpose of a woman lies in her absolutely unique natural gift – the continuation of the family line,” said Russian President Vladimir PutinExternal link while speaking to students earlier this year. He emphasised the importance of families raising at least three children, stating that higher education and career planning get in the way of starting a family, which should happen earlier rather than later.

Legislative crackdown: Russia bans ‘childfree ideology’

In November, the Russian State Duma, the lower house of parliament, adopted a ban on the “promotion of the childfree ideology”, which would impose fines ranging from 50,000 roubles to five million roubles (CHF445 to CHF44,500) for violators. Examples of violation include “promoting childfree” ideas online or through the media. Films that “promote rejection of childbearing” will not receive distribution licences in Russia; website owners will be required to monitor their content for information “promoting the rejection of childbearing”. Such content will be added to the registry of banned websites.

Developed nations around the world are struggling to maintain “replacement-value” birth rates that ensure population stability and economic growth into the future. But such legislation in authoritarian countries such as Russia shows how far leaders are willing to go to hold on to power at the expense of women’s rights.

Global birth rate challenges and authoritarian responses

“This legislation can be viewed as one aspect of the lengthy campaign by Russian authorities to promote ‘traditional family values’ both within the country itself and as part of concerted international lobbying within bodies including the United Nations Human Rights Council,” says Joanna Bourke Martignoni, a researcher at the Geneva Graduate Institute and the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights.

Bourke Martignoni explains that conservative governments, including Russia and allies from the US, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, are lobbying for regressive laws on sexual orientation, gender identity, and sexual and reproductive health. This influence has grown in inter-governmental forums such as the Human Rights Council, exemplified by the October adoption of a resolution on family rights, backed by countries such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, China, and Russia. The resolution promotes “family-oriented” human rights approaches. These discussions are part of broader debates led by governments and conservative NGOs, focusing on issues such as abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, and sexuality education.

Bourke Martignoni argues that Russia’s “child-free propaganda law” also capitalises on anti-Western sentiments at a time when “Russia is embroiled in the conflict in Ukraine and is seeking new ways to unite the country against its external enemies”.

“For Russia, this is a critical moment because if women unite and become a force, they will naturally advocate against the war and for the disarmament of returning soldiers, many of whom are violent and have access to weapons,” explains Russian politician and lawyer Alena Popova, who was labelled by the Russian authorities as “a foreign agent”.

Women are the demographic majority in Russia. Popova says that before the Ukraine war, the Russian population consisted of 77 million women and 66 million men. She explains that to maintain Putin’s electoral base, the regime must focus on “family values” so that this female majority does not realise they live in poverty and rise up against the government.

Russia also has one of the highest divorce ratesExternal link among UN member countries. After divorce, the responsibility for the family, including financial support, largely falls on women. In 2019 Russians owed alimonyExternal link payments amounting to a record 152 billion roubles.  

This ideology is also adhered to by Putin’s longtime supporter, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The Turkish leader has repeatedly expressed opposition to gender equality, urging Turkish women to have at least three children and referring to childless women as “incomplete”. His wife, Emine Erdoğan, called in October for women to prefer “physiological” and “natural” childbirth, arguing that caesarean sections “contradict nature”. 

China’s shift: from one-child policy to encouraging larger families

In Asia, the world’s second-largest economy, China, has done an about-face when it comes to birth rates. Today, Chinese authorities are also encouraging women to have up to three childExternal linkren: in 2023 China had one of the lowest birth rates in the world, a result of the former “one child per family” policy implemented in the 1970s.  

“For decades, China has controlled women’s reproductive rights, viewing women’s reproductive ability as a national asset when desired, and a burden when not,” says Anna Kwok, executive director of the Hong Kong Democracy Council. Although she says those strict controls have not been extended to her homeland of Hong Kong, they are enforced harshly in places such as Tibet and East Turkestan, where Uyghur women are being coerced into bearing Han Chinese children, as part of an effort to erase Uyghur identity.

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Kwok says these human rights abuses have gained attention in democratic countries, but finding effective responses is difficult given China’s influence globally, including at the UN. “It’s also not hard to imagine China sharing methods with other authoritarian regimes to control women’s bodies and birth rates,” Kwok says.

The New York Times recently reported on efforts by Chinese officials to influence women’sExternal link decisions to have children, including making phone calls or knocking on doors to ask when they plan to start a family. Some couples received prenatal vitamins from local authorities as a wedding gift. On social media, women reported neighbourhood officials asking about their last menstrual cycle. Chinese universities now offer a course promoting a “positive view of marriage and childbearing”.

Authoritarian influence on women’s reproductive rights beyond borders

The messaging and tactics being used by the likes of Russia, China and Turkey to encourage childbearing do not stop at their borders. The British media outlet Byline TimesExternal link reported in 2022 that across Europe, Vladimir Putin’s influence machinery actively undermined women’s and LGBTQ+ rights, spread misinformation, funded anti-gender campaigns, and supported far-right political parties that embraced “anti-gender theory” or “family defenders”.  

Byline Times said that between 2009 and 2018, at least $186.7 million (CHF165 million) in Russian oligarch funding for anti-gender initiatives flowed into Europe, with these funds directed towards organisations linked to US right-wing political strategist Steve Bannon, particularly in Italy and Spain.

In Italy, right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government recently passed a law that imposes large fines and prison sentences on citizens who go abroad to use surrogate mothers. 

This law reflects the conservative policies of Italy’s first female prime minister and leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party. She identifies as a Christian and a mother and advocates that only heterosexual couples should raise children. Meloni has openly opposed surrogacy for LGBTQ+ couples, making anti-LGBTQ+ messaging a key part of her campaign platform.

Beyond Europe, in the US, the World Congress of Families (WCF) coalition advocates for traditional family values, emphasising the importance of childbearing and opposing divorce, abortion, birth control and LGBTQ+ people. The WCF connects Russian funding with American campaigns surrounding its top issues. WCF president Brian Brown also heads the National Organization for Marriage and is linked to right-wing European politicians, such as Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán and Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini.

The WCF’s narratives were echoed in the recent presidential campaign, where Vice President-elect JD Vance accused presidential candidate and current Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats of being anti-family and called them “childless cat ladies”External link.

Vance has previously praised policies enacted by Viktor OrbánExternal link to encourage people to have more children and suggested the United States copy the Hungarian model.

Karen Olson-Robins, an American Democratic activist living in Geneva and former field organiser with the 2008 Obama campaign, says this raises alarm bells for American women. “Of course, in most European countries, as distinguished from the United States, healthcare is considered a human right. And in the United States, there is an attempt on the part of Trump and his supporters to control women’s decisions about their own health: this endangers women’s health and is unethical and unacceptable,” she says.

Conservative countries unite around women’s repression

Countries such as Iran which have long been subject to international sanctions and are embroiled in polarising international conflicts are also using childbearing to boost their economies and assert their power.

Mojdeh Abtahi, an independent researcher on the Middle East working in Geneva, says that Iranian authorities want to show their enemies that they are powerful due to the size of their population.

“They say that a country like Israel with six million inhabitants won’t be able to compete with one with 90 million,” she says.

The Iranian authorities have not only enforced mandatory hijab laws, leading to widespread protests across the country, but they have also imposed restrictive policies on prenatal care. 

Recently they removed permissions for prenatal screenings that allow women to detect fetal health issues. This decision prevents women from accessing an abortion in cases where serious fetal abnormalities are detected, forcing them to continue such pregnancies.

Human rights institutions struggle to counter movement

Bourke Martignoni believes that there is a global backlash against feminism and sexual and reproductive rights and freedoms.

“This can be seen in human rights institutions where many ‘unholy alliances’ of conservative and authoritarian governments from around the world often come together to promote agendas that limit the equal rights of women and LGBTIQ+ people in the name of the protection of ‘traditional values’,” she says.

Philip Jaffé, a professor at the University of Geneva and a member of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, as well as the co-author of Women’s rights and children’s rightsExternal link, said that women’s and girls’ reproductive and fundamental rights “are under attack in many different countries, such as the US or in Eastern Europe”.

He explained that the Committee constantly addresses states with policies in violation of women’s rights, emphasising that “governments must interfere as little as possible” when it comes to women’s reproductive choices. “Bans, prohibitions and restrictions are not acceptable,” he said.

Adriana Lamačková, Associate Director for Europe at the Center for Reproductive Rights in GenevaExternal link, says that “by monitoring state actions, providing guidance, and holding governments accountable to their commitments, human rights institutions play a vital role in safeguarding and advancing [women’s] rights”.

But Jaffé admits that “the power of certain conservative forces, mixed with religious stances, means it often feels like crying into the void”.

Edited by Veronica DeVore, Geraldine Wong Sak Ho/ts

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