MOSCOW, October 24 (RAPSI) – A bill improving custodial conditions for pregnant women and mothers with kids passed its first reading in the State Duma on Thursday.

The bill sets sanitary standards equaling to at least 4 square meters for mothers jailed with children under the age of three years in one cell. Moreover, the initiative stipulates that pregnant women and women with kids be held separate from others kept in confinement.

Currently, such regulations apply to suspected and accused persons; and as children do not fall into these categories, they are held with their mothers in worse conditions.