Moscow, June 13

Russian women should refrain from sleeping with visiting World Cup fans so as to avoid becoming single mothers with mixed-race children, a lawmaker who heads the parliament’s family committee said on Wednesday.

Tamara Pletneva, a 70-year-old Communist who leads the lower house’s family, women and children body, told Govorit Moskva radio station she hoped women would not date visiting fans and get pregnant.

The WC hosted by Russia could mean “there will be young women who meet someone and then give birth... I hope not,” she said. She compared the situation to the 1980 Olympics held in Moscow, which led to some local women having then-unusual relationships with foreigners and falling pregnant.

Asked if the World Cup could boost Russia’s birth rate — a key goal for President Vladimir Putin — Pletneva replied: “We should be giving birth to our own children.”

Children who are mixed-race are likely to be brought up in one-parent families, she warned.

Pletneva previously criticised the #MeToo campaign against sexual harassment, tentatively spreading in Russia.