Tatyana Butskaya, chair of Russia’s Council of Mothers, submitted a proposal to Education Minister Sergey Kravtsov to install video surveillance systems in all Russian nurseries. Butskaya also called for the necessary conditions to be established for storing and accessing the recordings.
The proposal followed an appeal from a mother who had previously worked at a private nursery and has a two-year-old daughter. The appeal raised concerns about incidents of violence that could occur in nurseries and often go unrecorded in official records.

According to Butskaya, video surveillance could help prevent confrontational situations. The system could also help objectively document allegations of unacceptable treatment of children and protect staff who follow the rules from false accusations.

Another part of the proposal called for nursery employees to undergo mandatory annual health examinations before being allowed to work with children. The examinations were proposed to be conducted by a psychiatrist and an addiction specialist.
The appeal stated that annual psychiatric and addiction examinations were necessary to prevent and identify at an early stage risks linked to staff members’ mental health.