MOSCOW, June 19. /TASS/. Nationals of countries where gender reassignment is allowed should be banned from adopting children from Russia, Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin wrote on his Telegram channel.

"It is quite obvious. It is necessary to institute a ban on citizens of states where sex changes are allowed from adopting children from Russia. Do you think otherwise?" Volodin wrote on his Telegram channel.

According to him, the Western laws regarding children are a tragedy. "In Australia, they propose to allow minors aged three and older to choose their own gender identity. In ten European countries there are no age restrictions to legally change your sex (in Austria, Estonia, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, Slovenia, Switzerland). Another eight European countries set a minimum age for minors (for example, in Spain - from the age of 12, in Belgium - from the age of 16)," the chairman noted.

He explained that in the US, children as young as six are given hormone therapy, and at age twelve, they can have sex reassignment surgery. "In Russia, propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations and sex reassignment surgeries is prohibited. Those who have had such surgery somewhere abroad are not eligible to be guardians or adoptive parents. Also, a ban on US citizens adopting children has been in place for more than 10 years. But citizens of other states where sex change is allowed still have such an opportunity," Volodin added.

The Duma chairman believes that Russian children, given the laws that exist in the West, would be at risk if they ended up there. "We will discuss this issue today as part of hearing the final report of the parliamentary commission to investigate criminal acts against minors," he explained.

Earlier, Vasily Piskarev, head of the State Duma Committee on Security and Corruption Control, reported on the development of a bill that would establish a ban on the adoption of children from Russia for citizens of countries that allow sex reassignment both by issuing the relevant documents and through medical procedures. According to Piskarev, this measure is necessary to protect the rights of children "in conditions when the laws of nature are flouted in a number of countries, and children become victims of cruel gender experiments." Thus, he noted, today it is impossible to guarantee to an adopted child that "later one will not end up in a same-sex family if one of the parents changes sex."