National Strategy on Action for Children in Russia and Council of Europe Strategies for the Rights of the Child

Development of the National Strategy for Action on Children for 2012–2017 implemented in two phases (2012–2014 and 2015–2017) coincided with the Council of Europe Strategies for the Rights of the Child for 2012–2015, and the new Council of Europe Strategies for the Rights of the Child for 2016–2022 takes effect in 2016. Author provides description of a new European instrument: the main current challenges in the field of children safeguarding; top areas and measures to respond to these challenges; methods to implement the strategy including based on the recommendations of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe to the Member States. The article gives examples of Russia’s accession to the international legal community through the ratification of various conventions that allowed to take domestic measures to ensure international standards to secure children from such crimes as trafficking in children, underage prostitution and por- nography, sexual abuse. The present paper examines opportunity to take into ac- count the new European guidelines and standards in Russian childhood policy and describes action taken in Russia to protect children’s rights as a response to the integrated European challenges, taking into account social and cultural differences.