Single Father Taken To Army 13 Days Before His 27th Birthday

In connection with the "complexities of the draft".

On the eve the "deputies" of the "chamber of representatives" approved the new law on deferment of the draft in the first reading, and, most likely, the autumn draft will be held under the new rules.

Belsat.eu has talked to a man who has already faced the new approach. Aleh was taken into the army four days before his 27th birthday, and the military registration and enlistment office wasn't stopped even by the fact that the young man was raising the child himself.

Aleh got divorced when his son was a year old. According to the court decision, the child stayed with him. The ex-wife rarely visited her son, and over time she stopped showing up. There were no problems with Aleh's conscription: it seemed that if you bring up the child alone, they wouldn't take you to the army.

Difficulties began when passing the call-up commission: the Frunzenski military registration and enlistment office couldn't answer the question whether it was necessary to go to the army for a long time. Afterwards, according to Aleh, they said that he was not supposed to serve. Two days before the end of the draft the situation changed:

"They told me a month ago that I had a deferment, but yesterday they lured me to check the papers. They said that the documents I had submitted were not enough to postpone the process and handed over the summons.

He couldn't believe in what was going on. Initially, they wanted to send Aleh to the army for a full term. In this case, the child would have stayed with his grandmother for a year:

"I was arguing with the commissioner for two hours, and in the end they still took me to the unit. They took me by car on the same day. They wanted to take me to serve for a regular term, but, according to the commission, the Ministry of Defense and the commissioner met me halfway, so I got into the reserve".

"He might have conspired with his wife"

Under article 32 of the Military Duty and Military Service Act, deferment of conscription for family reasons is granted to the father of a child who is brought up without a mother. However, divorce and court decisions are not enough; it is necessary for the mother to be deprived of parental rights.

One of the representatives of the Frunzenski District Recruitment Commission said in an unofficial conversation:

"We don't know, maybe he and his wife have conspired, and they divorced on purpose so that he could avoid military service. And in general, he was very lucky that there was a place in the reserve, he could have been sent for a regular term. We made him concessions."

Aleh's mother received a similar answer on the website of the Ministry of Defense.

We remind that due to the difficulties with the call-up, on February 26th, Lukashenka spoke about the need for changes in the law: "For a number of years, various deferments were introduced for conscripts, and today we have more of them than in any other state, especially in neighboring countries."

More than 10,000 people signed up for a petition against the draft law "On Changing the Laws on the Effective Functioning of the State Military Organization.