21 April 2016, 09:15
The Verkhovna Rada Committee on Family Matters, Youth Policy, Sports and Tourism held a hearing entitled "Child support obligations: problems and solutions" at the initiative of Commissioner of the President of Ukraine for Children's Rights and the Ukrainian Bar Association. In recent years the situation with the recovery of child support obligations has significantly deteriorated. Thus, in 2015 almost 83,000 child support payers had arrears for a period of over six months. As a result, tens of thousands of children have not received the child support payments from their parents.
To tackle this critical situation, the Committee on Civil Law of the Ukrainian Bar Association has elaborated a draft law and in advance sent it to all state government bodies and public organizations, who had attended the Committee hearings.
To correct the situation it is necessary on the one hand to perfect the mechanism of recovering the child support and additional expenses for the child, and on the other hand to increase attention of state government bodies as to the timely recovery of these payments.
Taking the above into account, the members of the Committee hearings recommend:
1. That the Members of the Committee for Family Matters, Youth and Sports submit for the consideration of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine the draft law on amendments to some legislative acts concerning perfecting the protection of the right of the child for adequate maintenance.
In his closing speech, Commissioner of the President of Ukraine for the Rights of the Child Mykola Kuleba said: "I want to express gratitude to all people indifferent to this problem for the professional discussion dedicated to solving the problem of child support payment. The Committee will surely take into account remarks to the draft law and will set up a corresponding working group. Therefore we offer all public authorities and bar associations in a one-week term to send to the Committee their candidatures for the composition of the working group. Following its work the Committee members will submit the finalized draft law for the consideration of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.
Also, in a one-week term please send your proposals to the draft Recommendations of the Committee hearings. These Recommendations will be finalized and approved at the next meeting of the Committee."
2. That the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine order:
1) The Ministry of Justice of Ukraine to tighten control over the timely recovery of child support obligations;
Quarterly inform the Committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on Family Matters, Youth Policy, Sports and Tourism, the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, the Commissioner of the President of Ukraine for the Rights of the Child on the number of child support payers having arrears on their obligations for a period of over three, six and twelve months;
2) The National Police to strengthen control over the proper investigation of criminal proceedings concerning evasion of payment of child support obligations.