Local authorities seized four children from their 34-year-old mother, Vera Kamkina, in the St. Petersburg suburb of Kolpino claiming that the woman didn't pay rent and so had no money to support children.

  Russian authorities promised to return children to mother after she pays rent of about

$ 4.660, a Russian paper, Novyye Izvestiya, reports.

  The paper writes that the Russian parliament is now discussing new amendments to a law called "On Basic Guarantees of the Rights of a Child in Russia" which rules that "parents are obliged to provide children with an adequate living standard". Otherwise, children are to be seized from parents and put into an orphanage. The criteria for an "adequate living standard of living" is not specified.

  "I do not drink, I do not smoke, I am not a drug addict. Of course, my family is living in very poor conditions. I brought up children alone and I am unable to work. But get some help from relatives and a charity fund", Vera Kamkina says.

  Such methods to recover debts are usually used by Russian pimps who abduct children from prostitutes so that mothers "works" hard for them.

  The paper writes that there'll be quite a lot of such cases in Russia in the future. 80% of families with many children n Russia live below the poverty level. Gas and electricity are cut off to many of them for debts. Particularly problematic is the situation in the regions most affected by the crisis.

  Snezhana Danilova from Stavropol managed at the end of last year to free her 6 children from captivity in an orphanage. The children were seized because mother had enough money, worked hard from morning till late night and had little time to care for children.

  A founder of soup kitchens for poor citizens in the Russian town of Kostroma, Alexander Pushkarev, told the paper about two fathers with many kids who lost their jobs during the crisis and committed suicide after authorities threatened to seize their children.