Tiraspol, 21 September. /Novosti Pridnestrovya/. The Supreme Council adopted at the first reading a package on professional foster families, submitted by the president. The bill provides that foster parents taking care of orphans or children deprived of parental care will draw salaries equal to the maximum official salary of an orphanage teacher. It is worth noting that the salary amount will depend on the number of fostered children. In addition, a special allowance is granted to them provided a disabled child is fostered.
One family can take up to four children. According to Social Security Minister Yelena Kulichenko, it is expected there will be around ten foster families in the following year.
A similar practice already exists both in Russia and in many Western countries. Foster families existed even in the Soviet Union. Children were taken by such families after the 1936 famine and the Great Patriotic War. Pridnestrovie was supposed to adopt the institute of foster families in 2010. It was defined in the Code of Marriage and Family. But back then, the implementation of this project stalled because of the shortage of finance.
According to Yelena Kulichenko, a family life will help such children to socialise better as compared to their upbringing in an orphan house. Fostered children, in the meantime, will retain the status of an orphan and all benefits.
According to the minister, paying salaries to foster parents will help to ensure that more children will be brought up in full-fledged families. This will partially reduce budget expenditures on orphanages and boarding schools, but the state does not intend to abandon these institutions until the problem of social orphanhood has been completely resolved.
The majority of MPs approved this bill. Oleg Vasilaty, however, argued against the use of juvenile technologies, saying it is necessary to develop small family homes instead of professional foster families.
MP Vadim Kravchuk also argued against the bill, expressing fears that foster families will cash on children instead of bringing them up.
But the minister noted to that that living conditions in such families would be monitored by the guardianship bodies. «We won't allow this to be commercialised," said Yelena Kulichenko.
Alexander Korshunov called on MPs to reject the introduction of the institute of professional foster families as a child can be simply taken in the custody and an allowance will be paid for his support. Yelena Kulichenko underscored, however, that as a rule, grandparents and other relatives take children in the custody, and the president's bill aims to help the children who have no relatives at all to be brought up in full-fledged families.
Due to the introduction of a new kind of payment in Pridnestrovie, amendments to the law «On uniform social tax» were also approved at the first reading. 22% of foster parents' salary will be deducted to the budget of the Unitary State Social Security Fund, thanks to which they will be able to continue their employment record. The rate of the uniform social tax will be distributed in the following way: 20.7% to pension insurance, 0.3% to unemployment insurance, 1% to the re-equipment of medical facilities. The minister added that an amendment lowering the tax rate might be drafted by the second reading.
