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Human Rights Organization “Soldiers’ Mothers of Saint-Petersburg”

has been protecting the legal rights of conscripts and soldiers since 1991. In addition, it assists the individuals who chose to undertake alternative civilian service, and works with the members of soldiers’ and conscripts’ families.

The NGO provides legal and social services free of charge. It also monitors, in response to people’s appeals, the violations of their legal rights and interests, and further drafts analytical materials for submitting them to the competent state authorities and international human rights institutions.

Soldiers’ Mothers of Saint-Petersburg postulate the assertion of the rule of law as their core objective. The organization fully subscribes to the principles of human rights, responsibility, human decency, law abidance in all its activities, and openness to the interaction with the authorities.

NGO’s activists firmly believe that the defence and development of human rights and fundamental freedoms are one of the most important means for achieving the abovementioned objectives. Soldiers’ Mothers of Saint-Petersburg are fully committed to the idea of basic freedoms and deem those freedoms to be the foundation of justice and universal peace. NGO’s team concurs in conclusion that mutual understanding and human rights defence are the main prerequisites for the observance of fundamental freedoms.

The ideal of the free human person enjoying civil liberty and freedom from fear and want can only be made real by means of creating a set of appropriate conditions. Those conditions must ensure that every person has an opportunity to exercise his or her economic, social, cultural, political and civil rights on an equal footing with all other individuals. It is also extremely import to emphasize that all civil rights derive from the inherent dignity of the human person.

NGO’s methods of legal and social assistance to conscripts, soldiers and their families rest on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the Constitution of the Russian Federation.

Soldiers’ Mothers of Saint-Petersburg are guided in their work by the ideas stipulated in Charter of personal responsibility and in the empowerment program. The latter anticipates that citizens should take personal responsibility and participate in decision-making on that level of society where they live and work. Today, Soldiers’ Mothers is one of very few Russian NGOs that have adopted the empowerment program.

The range of activities of the Soldiers’ Mothers of Saint-Petersburg includes:

• analytical work and the preparation of independent reports on the human rights situation in the area of civil-military relations;
• legal education and training in legal mechanisms, which individuals can resort to for protecting human rights and freedoms;
• legal support of conscripts and preconscripts;
• development of the institution of alternative civilian service;
• fighting against corruption in the military;
• protection of the rights of soldiers and members of their families;
• fighting against torture and abusive treatment in the army;
• work with socially vulnerable groups;
• “hot line” for the protection of conscripts’ and soldiers’ rights;
• civilian control over the military departments and other governmental agencies responsible for the conscription into the armed forces.

Furthermore, the NGO is involved in developing the mechanisms of civilian control over the observation of laws in the Russian Armed Forces, as well as in other military formations. Soldiers’ Mothers actively cooperate with the district military command and the Ministry of Defence for ensuring the protection of citizens’ rights. NGO’s activists also visit military bases and take part in the work of the Standing Committee on Civil-Military Relations of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights.

Our address: Saint-Petersburg, Raz’ezzhaya ulitsa 9 (“Vladimirskaya” and “Dostoevskaya” metro stations).

We are open to visitors from Monday to Friday from 14:00 to 20:00.

NGO’s Chairperson: Oksana Paramonova

Phones: +7 (812) 712-41-99 and 712-50-58 (from 14 to 20 o’clock).

NGO’s spokesperson: press@soldiersmothers.ru

Learn more at http://hragents.org/en-org/sm-en/