North Ossetia: alimony debts exceed 40 million roubles

According to the local department of the Federal Service of Court Marshals (FSCM), the alimony debts in this republic exceed 40 million roubles. For the second month already photos of malicious defaulters are hung out in the centre of Vladikavkaz at advertisement boards with indication of their passport details and the amount of debt.

"This is also a legal form of struggle. Here we post photos those debtors who were announced into civil search. After we started this action, the number of those who are wanted, but who come to us and ask not to show their photos in the LED screen, has gone up. Debtors understand that if they don't appear voluntarily, the entire country will go on watching them," Ibragim Gobeev, head of North-Ossetian FSCM, said.

According to his story, alimony claims make more than half of all the complaints received by local court marshals. Now, more than 250 debtors are searched; while the total number is 2900. Today, five photos of alimony non-payers are on the show in the advertising screen, demonstrated one after another.

According to lawyer Timur Medoev, public demonstration of an individual's photo is prohibited by the legislation of the Russian Federation; the exceptions are those who are in civil search.

"I believe that this measure will be efficient in North Ossetia, because the public opinion, especially in the Caucasus, has a pretty strong effect. There are enough legitimate methods of affection, and if they worked, there would be no need to publicly humiliate people," he said.

Residents of Vladikavkaz have ambiguous attitude to the measure against alimony non-payers.

"I think it is no good to post photos around the city of someone's father who fails to pay alimony or is hiding," said Inga Kotaeva.

A visitor from Moscow believes that this penalty should be applied not only to those who do not pay alimony.

Another woman from Vladikavkaz, who asked not to name her, said that she supported the initiative of court marshals. In her opinion, everyone should be responsible for his or her actions.

Galina Babich believes that such people should be disciplined at work, where they should be forced to pay their alimonies. "The society, knowing that this man had a wife and has children, should influence and force him to pay his dues," said the woman.

Alexander Khasiev, an active Internet user, supposes that this situation with alimony debtors is observed after the problem was voiced out by Pavel Astakhov, Russian Children's Ombudsman, who visited the republic. However, he noted that court marshals did not fully benefit from the possibilities of information technologies.

According to Khasiev, the marshals could get support from mobile operators; and it could be done through a properly developed agreements. "I'm more than sure that alimony debtors have cell phones; and some pilot project could be launched, say, for a hundred of them - to remind them by SMS messages sent from law enforcement agencies that they escape from court rulings," he suggested.

Let us note here that other regions of the south of Russia are also using various methods of alimony debt collection. Thus, the regional office of the FSCM for the Krasnodar Territory decided to deal with unscrupulous parents by using social advertising service. Banners calling to pay alimony appeared in the territorial capital.

In Karachai-Circassia, active work with neglectful parents is underway; steps are taken to collect money from alimony debtors. To this end, court marshals of the region and employment services try to employ them. In addition, marshals decided to unite their efforts in trying to influence the conscience of malicious defaulters with religion leaders.

In 2009, in the Volgograd Region court marshals placed leaflets in public places - at bus stops, entrances to residential buildings and in elevators - with a reminder about the must to pay the alimony and calling not to forget about children. Leaflets were also given into hands of parents-debtors.

In Kalmykia in June an agreement was signed between the FSCM department for Kalmykia and representatives of religious confessions of the republic. With the help of churchmen the marshals are going to "awaken the debtor's consciousness and encourage them to obey to the judicial decisions."

Last August Chechnya held a large-scale action "Debtor" aimed at forcing the debtors, alimony ones inclusive, to pay all their debts. 38 posts were set up in various regions of the republic, where employees of the FSCM, taxation service, traffic police and patrol and post service of the Chechen Ministry of Internal Affairs were on duty. Screening actions were also carried out at the airport, railway station and bus stations. Every station was equipped with a computer keeping the whole database of all defaulters.