Yelena Kotova, head of Kolybel Nadezhdy (Cradle of Hope), a non-governmental organization, opens the baby box in Kirishi, Russia, on Wednesday.(Photo: Dmitry Lovetsky, AP)
KIRISHI, Russia -- A box in which parents can leave their babies
anonymously without any legal risk opened Wednesday in a town in
northwestern Russia - part of an effort that activists hope will save
many young lives.
The baby box in Kirishi, an industrial town 60
miles (100 kilometers) east of St. Petersburg, is the tenth such
facility in Russia. Experts think that's just a fraction of what is
needed.
"Even if only one child is saved that way it will be worth
it," said Tatiana Sobolevskya, deputy chief of the maternity department
of Kirishi's hospital, where the baby box is located. Nikolai Muravlev,
a Russian Orthodox priest, came to bless the box and praise it as
"island of safety."
Once a baby is put in the box, its door closes
and a nurse gets alerted by a signal. There are no security cameras so
parents can leave their babies anonymously. An information stand next
to the box appeals to parents to think over their decision and offers
contact numbers for assistance.
Kolybel Nadezhdy (Cradle of Hope),
a non-government organization that opened the baby box, said it should
help attract nationwide attention to the issue. Its head, Yelena Kotova,
said more than a dozen babies are abandoned in Russia every month
according to official statistics, but she said the real figures are
believed to be at least three times higher.
Russian police have
registered 268 cases of murder of newborn babies by their mothers in
2010-2011, and Russian media have carried regular reports of babies
found in garbage containers, forests or snowdrifts. One of the most
recent cases was in St. Petersburg in August, when a man found a
3-day-old baby in a plastic bag in the bushes. The boy survived and was
soon adopted.
Kotova said in her home city of Perm in the Ural
Mountains, the bodies of two newborn babies were found on a balcony. A
woman who lived there with her other children just felt unable to raise
another child, she said.
In July, a five-day-old girl was left in a
baby box in Perm with a note giving her name, Margarita, and her date
of birth. Two more babies were left in baby boxes organized by Russia's
Krasnodar region.
Associated Press