After the Chornobyl disaster fighters it is mothers’ turn now: they might not receive the child benefits. In this case the gender equality would be useful: according to the information of the UN Research Institute for Social Development, if the parliament does not include 40 percent of women the social problems are neglected, if it does not include even 20 percent of women the children’s problems are neglected, too. Since, according to Semen Hluzman, head of the Ukrainian Psychiatric Association and human rights advocate, “there is the Ministry of Social Policy but the social policy does not exist.” The bill introduced to the Verkhovna Rada at the end of November and providing for restrictions for child benefits has been recently severely criticized.
“We will not allow introducing any additional references or restrictions. Quite the contrary, we have to increase the benefits and make all the procedures the simplest possible. The government has to encourage higher birth rate. Young mothers have to feel care and support,” first Vice-Premier, Minister of the Economic Development and Commerce Andrii Kliueiv criticized the bill; however, he hardly understood why various institutions criticized this bill.
We remind our readers that the authors of the bill suggested providing the family composition reference and salary reference to be able to receive child benefits. The bill also provides for limiting the benefits for single mothers if their salaries exceed the average, calculated by the State Statistics Committee of Ukraine (plus the living wage for a child, for example, 870 hryvnias for children under three years old). Though Mykola Azarov promised that social workers will stop checking the families with children, the inspectors still come to see how the families spend the child benefits.
“Two women came,” Viktoria from Kyiv, mother of two girls of 1 and 2 years old told The Day. “They spent a log time asking what jacket I wore and why I did not wear a coat. I asked them if I should have played with children in the sandbox in a coat. They asked about the nappies: why we use Huggies and not Pampers that are more expensive. They also asked about the money we had spent to repair our balcony and what children eat (I showed them what we had in the fridge) and if we have a baby carriage… Finally they said that we live well. Now I do not know if I will receive any benefits,” Viktoria said. She also said that similar inspections are frequent in the village where her relatives live. If the inspectors see a Lada car of 1980 they think that this family “lives well.”
According to the specialists from the Institute for Demography and Social Studies at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine working side by side with the Ministry of Labor, this ministry is currently carrying out a pilot project aimed at introducing the indirect estimate of income of the families pretending to any kind of assistance. Its purpose is to check the incomes. The inspectors will check those who received benefits as low-income families, those who received the subsidies and single mothers receiving the augmented child benefit for children under 3 years old. To receive the minimum assistance these mothers will have to indicate that their salaries are lower than the average one. If a single mother has a salary exceeding a certain minimum she will automatically lose this benefit. We remind our readers that this law was supposed to come into force since 2012.
IS ASKING NEIGHBORS ABOUT THE LIFE OF A FAMILY AN INTERNATIONAL PRACTICE?
According to the State Statistics Committee, the average salary in Ukraine is 2,700 hryvnias. It significantly differs in various regions: in Kyiv it is slightly higher than 4,100 hryvnias, in Donetsk it is 3,200; the lowest average salary is in the Ternopol oblast: 1,950 hryvnias. The Ministry of Labor offered the following: if single mother earns more than 3,500 hryvnias (2,700 of the average salary plus the living wage), she will not be paid 250 hryvnias a month for a child under 6 years old or 280 hryvnias for a child of 6 years old and older. It seems to be a little money but it makes about 3,000 a year. Every mom knows that she can use it to buy at least winter clothes and boots.
The experts The Day asked to explain this situation refer to the practice of the European countries where the state assistance is targeted.
“The number of single mothers receiving child benefits is growing every year. There is no any proof that they do not live with their children’s fathers. The benefit is given because there is no information about the fathers in the birth certificates. Its minimum size is provided when there are no any references about help. Its maximum size can be provided if there are income references. According to the information for 2010, 559,500 single mothers received the benefits (in 2005 there were 392,000 of them). This is very unpleasant, the more that we suspect that some mothers do not register their children’s fathers to be able to receive the benefits. The minimum payment for a child of 6-18 years old is 287 hryvnias, the maximum is nearly 500 hryvnias. In my opinion, it is not a big money not to register fathers but the statistics prove that it happens,” Liudmyla Cherenko, head of the department for living standards at the Institute for Demography and Social Studies says. “The Ministry of Labor workers that often visit such families to check the living conditions of children and how the child benefits are spent (if there are children under 3) often see the classical situation: there are several children with the same patronymic in a family. The father having this name lives with the mother and children but he is not registered as their father. In a village where it is difficult to find a job for a minimum salary a mother of three children receives 300 hryvnias per each, so it is a certain income. The number of single mothers has recently grown because of the villagers.”
This is our reality that makes Ukraine different from other countries: the people cannot find a job and cheat. The state has to care firstly about working places for its people and then think how to save up on payments. As for single mothers, they invented the following: asking their neighbors how they live, if they have a conditioner, a bicycle (not a children’s one, I hope), a dishwasher, whether they repaired their houses, whether they receive money from abroad or have cohabiters. “All the European countries check it since they have significant preferences for single mothers. However, if the neighbors say that a woman lives with a man who financially supports her children, the benefit is not provided,” Liudmyla Cherenko says. Thus their schemes apply to our reality.
Maksym Boroda, analyst of the International Center for Prospective Studies says: “The indirect estimate of incomes is the first step towards the targeted social assistance: payments or benefits provided not to a certain category but, for example, only for single mothers who, for some reason, really need help. The attempt to indirectly estimate the incomes of single mothers is the first step towards helping those who really need it. This is common in the European countries where the whole system of assistance is targeted. Social inspectors work with every person who wants to receive the public assistance or has the right for it and assesses this person’s needs, welfare, incomes, and household, all the circumstances and makes a decision whether this person should receive the assistance or not and what it should be. Now nearly a third of the Ukrainian people have the right for different benefits and other kinds of public assistance, the situation is close to the absurdity: who will work and pay the people who enjoy the benefits and public assistance?”
This approach seems to be right, however, checking how honest the people entitled to benefits, disabled people, families with children and the Chornobyl disaster fighters are is strange in the country having one of the highest levels of corruption in the world (according to the information of the international organization Transparency International, in 2011 Ukraine has gone down to the 152th place from the 134th it took last year with the rating of 2.3, where the highest level of corruption is 0 and the lowest one is 10) and where the officials are driving the cars that the EU officials would never afford. Why don’t the MPs, officials, ministers and their deputies, governors and mayors, prosecutors and judges cut their expenses?
THE MONEY IS NOT DISSIPATED BY THE FAMILIES WITH CHILDREN BUT BY THE OFFICIALS
Another difference between Ukraine and the developed countries is that there the politicians are not cut off from the people’s life. They go to the same shops and in the same streets that ordinary people and know how much the bread is. In Ukraine the situation is absolutely different.
“They got up from a golden toilet, went through a crystal-clean corridor, got on the polished cars that cost the earth and got to their destination point. How can they know how other people live? They do not understand it. So, why don’t they stop and ask? The president said that he does not understand how people can live for 800 hryvnias. Why don’t they analyze it?” Oleksandra Kuzhel said in the interview to Ukrainska Pravda.
Some of the experts at the Institute for Demography say that there are single mothers who can hardly do because the money is dissipated for those who do not need this help. However, the rejected bill did not provide for augmenting the benefits for mothers in need, only for the restrictions. It means that nobody will receive the money that will be saved up but the officials.
“The specialists from the Ministry of Labor have been working for a long time to fully compensate the payments to the Afghan war veterans, Chornobyl disaster fighters and veterans through freezing the benefits for the war children and professional benefits for prosecutors, judges, deputies, and policemen. It was before the Chornobyl disaster fighters protested near the Verkhovna Rada. Yushchenko started doing it back in 2001 but we have the endless elections and the politicians do not always allow doing it,” this is how Liudmyla Cherenko sparingly explained our authorities’ “political will” to cut their own expenses. Saving on mothers is easier. They will survive and will not go on a hunger strike since they have to feed their children.
