A parents' committee in Ekaterinburg, a city of over a million people in the Urals, has decided to tackle the problem of paedophilia using their own methods. They have instigated a “reward for the head of a paedophile”.

They will award 100,000 rubles (roughly US$ 4,000) to anyone who helps hand a paedophile over to the police and 500,000 rubles (US$ 19,000) to anyone who kills or severely injures one.

The first reward has already been given to Evgeny Ivin, a student, who detained a paedophile and thereby saved a nine-year-old girl from rape earlier this year. The aspect of the story which most worried the committee was the fact that, allegedly, three passers-by saw the crime being committed, before the fourth, Ivin, decided to intervene. The new award will, according to them, make ordinary citizens more attentive in such situations.

The second, more substantial, award is destined for those who have been jailed for “dealing” with a paedophile. The committee insists that society turns away from such individuals, but their actions can be understood. The money, according to the committee, can be used to pay attorneys and for moral compensation that the government all too often doesn't provide.

The awards will be funded using donations made by committee members. According to its chairman, Valery Netalyev, they tried cooperating with the government, asking for tougher federal measures. The petition asked for forced castration and the death penalty for paedophiles. However, the initiative did not receive government support.

“We were advised to ”work“ with the parents, introduce a curfew, teach the children not to trust adults, teach them self-defence, even the infants. We were even told to quit our jobs and become ”bodyguards“ for our own children,” said Netalyev in an interview with the news portal Strana.ru.

Mikhail Vingradov, a criminologist, agrees with the premises of the awards:

“Indeed, we are playing games with paedophiles in this country, instead of fighting them. They are often made administratively accountable, or their sentences are suspended. In the West, they receive huge, sometimes life, sentences.”

However, he argues that the measures instituted in Ekaterinburg could have detrimental consequences. The awards, according to him, could be used to accuse those who are not guilty, leading to a reinstitution of “public courts”. Moreover, Vinogradov argues, for any significant change in the current situation, the whole judicial system needs to be reformed, as well as the psychology of the courts in relation to paedophilia and child pornography.

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