IDs for large families

The Law of Ukraine “On Making Changes to Some Legislative Acts of Ukraine on Social Protection of Large Families” came into force on Jan. 1, 2010. Under this law, large families enjoy a number of privileges which will at least ease, if not solve, many of their material problems. The law provides for additional social guarantees to large families, including the provision of low-cost housing, on a priority basis, for families and single mothers that have five of more children, as well as when three or more children are simultaneously born to one woman. The latter provision has already been in force in Kyiv oblast. For example, a young family in Irpin, to which three infants were born this year, was given housing free of charge.

Large families also have some other, no less important, privileges. Such families pay half the cost of rent, public utilities, and fuel (for families that live in houses without central heating). The law also guarantees longer vacations for mothers of many children. Besides, legislative amendments grant large families the right to acquire duly prescribed medicines and use all kinds of municipal transport free of charge. Children from large families are exempt from paying for first education at higher educational institutions of all accreditation levels.

Yet any law can only be implemented if it is adequately funded. Ukraine’s regions fear that the amendments will be “implemented” on paper only due to a lack of funds.

“As the 2010 budget has not yet been approved, some provisions of this law are still waiting for their turn,” says Emma Lamak, director of the Department for Family and Gender Policies of Ukraine’s Ministry for Family, Youth, and Sport. “At present, funds are being allotted for paying half the public utilities and rent cost, as well as some other services that do not requite one to produce a large family member ID. But such privileges as free rides on public transport and issue of doctor-prescribed medicines, when one must produce an identification card, are not yet in force.”

According to Volodymyr Losiev, deputy chief of the Kyiv Oblast Administration’s Department for Family, Youth and Sport, the Cabinet of Ministers has not yet approved the provision of social guarantees for large families. And it is impossible to make the required IDs without a Cabinet instruction.

“A database of large families has already been created. For example, there are about 7,000 of them in Kyiv Oblast,” Losiev says. “But there is an acute problem of forming an electronic database which could record all the details, such as the number of families and children, their age, etc. It will be rather difficult to monitor continuous fluctuations in the number of large families without this system, because children grow up. In my view, this kind of innovations to help families with three or more children should have been introduced back in 1995. I am sure that if this law takes effect, this will be a major stimulus that will drive the birth rate up and improve the demographic situation, which is very difficult now, especially in the countryside.”

At the same time, far from all large families know about the innovation and, therefore, are not exactly rushing to apply to local family and youth departments. For this reason, a single register of large families in Ukraine is still to be drawn up. Meanwhile, the collected data have been referred to the Ministry of Labor and Social Policies. This register will make it possible to issue IDs that will allow one to be eligible for privileges.