On Wednesday, Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Mykola Tomenko opened the parliamentary hearings "Institute of Family in Ukraine: State, Problems and their Solution." Mykola Tomenko considers the institute of family to be utterly important and vulnerable.
The Deputy Chairman reminded that it is the second time that the Verkhovna Rada scrutinized this issue related not only to the institute of family, but also to different social, economic, moral and information components. M.Tomenko stressed that the parliament had strengthened social security of families. However, although international institutions appreciated the adopted laws, they are not implemented on a systemic basis.
M.Tomenko informed that both the former and the acting governments increased financial aid given for childbirth, "but such actions are not supported by a comprehensive state, social, and information fashion for family." The politician stressed, "Problems will continue, until this fashion is set, and other, non-aggressive, standards of behavior come in trend." He reported that more than 100 thousand families who are bringing up more than 200 thousand children endure hardships. "It is the most vulnerable group of population," M.Tomenko said.
Deputy Minister of Family Matters, Youth and Sports Yurii Syzenko cited statistical data. As of the end of 2010, there was 37,8 per cent of families with children below 18 years of age in Ukraine, including 73,5 per cent of families with one child, 23,5 per cent with two children, 3 per cent with three or more children. "The number of families with children is falling every decade. Families with many children become an exception. Ukraine becomes a country of families with one child," the government member summed up. He stressed that the acting government realizes their responsibility for the formation of an effective system of state family policy by stabilization and improvement of the economic situation in the country.
The reporter mentioned the following actions to be taken in the field of social services: to improve the forms of consultations on marriage, upbringing of children, sex education of teenagers and youth; to develop and enact a national model of social-economic patronage of young families, families with children, families with many children, single-parent and dysfunctional families; to reorient state family policy towards prevention of family dysfunctionality; to introduce the office of a social work expert in the community to provide targeted comprehensive social assistance to the families and coordinate activity of the subjects of social work in the solution of family problems; to support development of establishments which assist drug and alcohol addicts; to support inter-sectorial cooperation in the work with families.
People´s Deputy Oksana Bilozir called for arranging such conditions and introducing such incentives that will let responsible parents afford childbirth even in the complicated circumstances, and will help them provide a proper upbringing and education. "Such incentives include formation of mother´s capital, introduction of child insurance programs, possibility of part-time work with a flexible schedule; calculation of time spent for childcare to the years of pensionable service. We should adopt a new model of taxation of families. Families with children should get tax preferences, which will encourage parents to have several children," O.Bilozir stated.
Authorized Representative of the President of Ukraine in charge of children´s rights Yurii Pavlenko admitted that complicated economic processes in the country influence family conditions. The Authorized Representative advised the following action to strengthen social support of the families: to revise the applicable procedure of deprivation of paternal rights, obliging the custody and care bodies to notify the courts how they support families in part of fulfillment of paternal rights; to introduce compulsory social monitoring of persons whose children were taken through a court proceeding without deprivation of paternal rights, and persons who declared their intention to restore their paternal rights; to propose that the Supreme Court rules inadmissible the existing practice of depriving the persons who can not fulfill paternal rights due to poverty or disability of paternal rights.
Participants of the parliamentary hearings stressed that the law on the State Budget of Ukraine should entrench the expenditures for a preferential long-term state credit financing of young families and single young citizens for construction (reconstruction), and purchase of housing, and for implementation of the program of partial compensation for the interest rate of credits of commercial banks to the young families and single young citizens for construction (reconstruction), and purchase of housing.
The chair informed that the proposals expressed during the hearings will be processed in the subject parliamentary committee and included to the recommendations of the parliamentary hearings which will be adopted as a separate resolution by The Verkhovna Rada.