Children, you are responsible...

In accordance with Part 2 of Article 32 of the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus, children are obliged to care for their parents, as well as those who replace them, and to provide them with assistance. Upon reaching adulthood, this obligation, along with moral requirements, takes on the legal form of an obligation to provide maintenance.

Current marriage and family legislation provides for the obligation of children to provide maintenance only to their parents and adoptive parents as persons who have the rights and obligations of parents (Part 1 of Article 134 of the Code of the Republic of Belarus on Marriage and Family (hereinafter referred to as the Marriage and Family Code of the Republic of Belarus)). Persons who actually perform the duties of parents, in particular a stepfather and stepmother of a child, do not have the right to receive maintenance from their children.

According to Article 100 of the Marriage and Family Code of the Republic of Belarus, children are obliged to care for their parents and provide them with assistance. The maintenance of disabled parents in need of assistance is the responsibility of their adult able-bodied children.

In accordance with Article 101 of the Marriage and Family Code of the Republic of Belarus, children may be released from the obligation to maintain their parents and reimburse the costs of caring for them if the court finds that the parents evaded their parental duties.

Parents deprived of parental rights lose the right to receive maintenance from their children.

Article 175 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus provides for criminal liability for able-bodied adult children evading, for more than three months, the payment of funds for the maintenance of disabled parents in need of material assistance, as determined by a court decision.

In the Beshenkovichi district, there are individuals of working age who are unemployed, dependent on elderly parents, systematically brought to administrative responsibility, and fall within the purview of law enforcement agencies.

In order to stimulate the employment of citizens of this category, it is planned to widely use the potential of involving them in the material support of their parents in preventive activities, by sending lawsuits to the court by the prosecutor for the recovery of funds from able-bodied adult children for the maintenance of elderly parents.

The district prosecutor's office has instructed the Beshenkovichi District Department of Internal Affairs and the rural executive committees of the district to identify unemployed individuals who are dependent on elderly parents, systematically brought to administrative responsibility, and fall within the purview of law enforcement agencies, and to provide information about them to the Beshenkovichi District Prosecutor's Office.

Deputy Prosecutor of the District
Junior Counselor of Justice E.I. Leshenok