Today, on the International Children’s Day, the YABLOKO party conducted a series of one-person pickets by the Ministry of Health Care and Social Development demanding raising of children’s allowances to the child’s subsistence minimum. YABLOKO’s activists demonstrated what a person can buy with child’s allowance amounting to RUR 750 (approximately USD 25 per month).

The Moscow authorities did not give their permit to conduct this action. The activists held placards “Raise the allowance to the subsistence minimum!” and “Subsistence minimum of RUR 7,006 = children’s allowance of RUR 750?”

YABLOKO’s activist demonstrated what can be bought with such allowance: several small bans of children’s nutrition, a package of baby diapers and a bar of soap. A child’s allowance paid in Moscow sufficed only for these things.

“Even in Moscow where we have the largest child’s allowance, it is still 10 times lower than a child’s subsistence minimum,” said Galina Mikhalyova, First Deputy Chair of the Moscow YABLOKO. According to Mikhalyova, in some regions families get as little as RUR 70 (about USD 2.3 per month). “It is a mockery,” she added.

Mikhalyova also reiterated that the problem of deficit of kindergartens had been unsolved in Moscow and other regions.

“Declaring support to demographic polices and raising of the birth rate in words only, the government does nothing so that to really improve the situation. We are drawing attention to this and demand that children’s allowances should be increased at least to the subsistence minimum,” Mikhalyova said.

The security of the ministry undertook several attempts to break up picketing. One of the securities even attacked a television crew of one of the channels trying to block the camera lens.

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Human Rights

Press Release
June 1, 2010