Returning children – life is not enough: who put women child support on the counter

Mothers with many children, whose rights are limited, cannot return their children: the state essentially puts them on the money counter. That is, for alimony. Child support is essentially paid to children, but in fact it is a way of putting pressure on the mother.

There are parents who owe more than a million rubles. The amounts are significant even for very wealthy and prosperous families. And if we are talking about women with material, housing and other problems, with often impaired social adaptation, then they will never pay.

Anna K. from Omsk. Mother of four children.

Born in 2001, 2007, 2009, 2018. Deprived of parental rights in 2021. The alimony debt is 1.4 million rubles.

“There were two such women. The guardianship authorities themselves asked social activists to help them restore their parental rights. They sent both of them to psychologists to help them establish social adaptation. “We provided assistance in filing a claim,” human rights activists say. – One went. The other refused. As a result, the children were returned to the one the psychologist did not see. Simply because she didn’t have a huge financial debt.”

Yes, until the mother pays off these debts, the children cannot be returned. Even if a woman really wants this and is trying her best to improve her life. There are alimony debts – no children. This is an aggravating circumstance in court.

“There are a huge number of such cases in Russia, when children are taken away by guardianship, the mothers are immediately assigned alimony, and in some cases guardianship is not even against returning the children later, but by this time huge debts accumulate for payments. And this is the main, and often the only reason why children cannot be returned,” says lawyer Nadezhda Goltsova.

At the same time, what is most surprising is that alimony is calculated from mothers with limited rights differently from divorced fathers who simply abandoned their heirs.

The scheme is simple, the court assigns alimony to the parent with limited rights (1/4, 1/3 or 1/2 of the income), and the bailiffs, if the mother does not have an official job, according to the law, calculate the amount of payments, not from the minimum wage, but based on “average salary” for the country (very far from reality). According to bailiffs, such a fantastic salary in Russia today is… 60 thousand rubles. Who came up with such a law? Based on what numbers? No comments.

That works out to an average of 15,000 per child per month. The debt is calculated from the moment the claim is filed. You’ve been suing for a year – you owe 180,000 rubles for one child (1/4 of the average salary), for 2 children 1/3 – 240,000 rubles, for 3 or more children 1/2 – 360,000 rubles.

“In less than a year, a debt of 150 thousand accrued on my youngest minor son, as they also calculated according to the national average, 25% of 60 thousand,” one mother with many children told MK. “Neither sick leave, nor surgery, nor two concussions, nor the fact that my son actually lived with me and not with a guardian, nothing was taken into account. If I had died, then my alimony would have been forgiven, period. Other circumstances are not considered valid. They hit us where it hurts the most, and there is no way out!”

The presence of this debt is considered by guardians, prosecutors and courts as “failure to fulfill parental responsibilities,” that is, a basis for further refusal to restore rights. Even if all other “quests” and guardianship requirements are completed. Moreover, the debt accumulates even if the woman does not work due to maternity leave.

If she finds a job, then from that moment on the amount of alimony will actually be counted from her official salary. However, the previously accrued amount will remain and hang like a dead weight.

“If women go to work officially, they rarely receive more than 20,000 rubles, especially in the provinces, from these 20,000 they are written off taking into account the debt, for example, for 3 children not 50% (1/2) of the salary, but 75%. As a result, 4-5 thousand rubles a month are often left to live on,” continues the lawyer.

In general, do not deny yourself anything for them – eat, do the repairs required by the guardianship, go to the orphanage to visit the children 100-250 km away (for some reason they try to send the selected minors as far from home as possible). You will rarely travel because they won’t let you leave work, which means you don’t want to return your children… This means you don’t love them that much…

As a result, a woman already limited in her parental rights ends up in financial bondage from which she can never get out. Bankruptcy will not help, since it does not apply to alimony debts. Yes, it happens that compassionate public figures and volunteers collect donations and pay off debts based on some very high-profile story. But this is one or two cases a year, and there are hundreds of such cases in Russia, which has proclaimed an inevitable return to traditional values.

Deputies are doing whatever they want, instead of really helping mothers who have already given birth to many children, who find themselves in a difficult life situation, who have taken the path of correction and want to return their children.

As a result, they turn out to be extreme and owe everything to everyone.