Labor Ministry offers to fine Kyrgyz labor migrants for leaving children in Kyrgyzstan for long time without official guardians
The Ministry of Labor, Social Security and Migration has introduced amendments to some legislation acts for public discussion (Children’s Code, the Offences Code, the laws on State Support of Small Business, on Patronage and Charitable Activities).
The Ministry offers to reinforce the responsibility of parents, who leave for labor migration leaving their children without determining guardians and without care-givers and without notifying the guardianship and trusteeship agencies about this, as well as responsibility of care-givers and guardians for failure to comply with the commitments.
For failure of parents or persons acting in their stead to carry out the duties of child-rearing, resulting in children being left for more than 15 days without the identification of guardians and without notifying the guardianship authorities, the Labor Ministry proposed to impose a fine on individuals in the amount of 150 calculated indicators (15,000 soms).
The justification note of the Ministry says that in the first quarter of 2024, 287,150 labor migrants have been surveyed. As a result, 84,542 children of labor migrants have been revealed. Among them 42,648 children are staying with relatives without registration of guardianship. De jure relatives are not responsible for the further life of children, the Ministry says.
“There are cases, when children of labor migrants experience psychological and emotional difficulties due to the lack of parental love and care, despite being in a family environment,” the Ministry notes.
Among children of labor migrants there are children, who do not attend educational, medical facilities and do not receive guaranteed state services. Sometimes such children need psychological support and aid.
The Ministry of Labor earlier initiated the draft regulatory legal act on notification of social workers by labor migrants, both about a child temporarily left without a care-giver. But due to the lack of the understanding at legal level and the status of children, whose parents went abroad for work, the draft failed to be considered, the Ministry said and suggests to introduce the term “children of labor migrants” to Children’s Code.
The Ministry also proposes additions to the article 190 of the Code of Offences in a part of responsibility of citizens for creating risks of accident situations for the participants of movement and danger of causing harm to own health.
As the Ministry noted, there are groups of persons and citizens today, who work (begging) on the roadway, which often pose a real threat of emergency situations for participants of the movement and danger of harm to their own health.
In addition, the draft law introduces amendments to the part of establishing the term “social business”, “social company” due to the lack of such understandings in the law of the Kyrgyz Republic on State Support of Small Business.
The Ministry also suggests to expand the goals of carrying out charitable activities.
The Ministry plans to develop a procedure of location, installation of boxes for collection of charitable funds, as well as their use for reduction of a number of illegal collections to avoid undermining of the reputation of the charitable sector of the Kyrgyz Republic.
