WUNRN
Institute for War & Peace
Reporting - IWPR
AZERBAIJAN
Alimony
and welfare provision fails to provide adequate support.
By Gulnaz
Qanbarli - Caucasus
6 May 2011
Suraya Qahramanova and one of her
children. (Photo: Gulnaz Qanbarli)
Single mothers in
Government
statistics indicate that it has become much more common for mothers to be
unmarried since the end of communism in 1991. That year, just 4,800 children
were born outside wedlock, while last year’s figure was 18,500. Around 5,000 of
these births were registered without a father being named on the certificate.
It is also common
for couples to go through the Muslim wedding rite without notifying the state;
this denies wives of the protections afforded by a legal marriage.
Aynur Sofiyeva,
deputy head of the State Committee for Families, Women and Children says women
are also left to fend for themselves by divorce and the death of a spouse, and
wants the government to do more to help them.
Official figures
show that the number of divorces rose by 16 per cent in 2009 and 2010.
Chingiz Qanizade,
a member of parliament who is a lawyer by profession, points out another
problem – absent husbands who are not officially divorced.
“In the provinces,
there are many single mothers whose husbands have gone abroad to earn money,
decided to stay there and don’t help their children at all,” he said. “In such
cases, all the financial problems fall to women.”
By law, husbands
have to pay alimony to their ex-wives, but since average wages are low, the
mandatory payments are inadequate. In any case, husbands frequently ignore
court orders requiring them to pay alimony.
“After a divorce,
men often think all the entire financial and moral burden of responsibility for
the children falls on the woman,” Matanat Aizova, head of the Women’s Crisis
Centre. “They distance themselves from paying for the children. In spite of
court decisions, men don’t pay alimony.”
Justice ministry
official Khanlar Zeynalov explained that judges could order one-off or monthly
payments from the ex-husband, or a sum to be paid by the state if the man was
unemployed. He insisted that non-payers were subject to prosecution and faced
stiffer penalties than before.
Qanizade has
proposed an “alimony fund” which would be controlled by the state and which
absent fathers would be forced to pay into. His suggestion has yet to be
debated in parliament.
Child benefits are
too small to make a difference to single-parent households in
Experts agree that
these tiny sums are of little use to women left to raise their children on
their own.
“It isn’t enough
to pay for nappies and baby food. The benefit paid for a newborn baby shouldn’t
be a one-off thing, but monthly – 75 manats would be a miserly sum even to
cover the monthly outgoings on a child. For single mothers, it’s just
catastrophic,” Mehriban Zeynalova, head of the Clean World group which
campaigns for women’s rights, said.
Women who have not
formally registered their marriage with the state face particular problems
after separation or the death of a spouse.
When Suraya
Qahramanova’s partner died, leaving her with two young children to support, she
was unable to claim child benefit because she had not been legally married.
“Normally children
left without a parent receive money from the state until they become adults,”
she explained. “But our marriage wasn’t registered officially, so my children
have been refused social benefits.”
Qahramanova said
she was unable to get a full-time job because she had no one to take care of
the children.
“Sometimes I go
and do cleaning for an acquaintance, but the money I earn doesn’t cover my
outgoings,” she said.