The Deputies of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of Belarus have ratified today the intergovernmental Belarusian-Italian agreement on terms of children rehabilitation based on grant aid.The agreement was signed in May of this year in Minsk. According to the Minister of Education Alexander Radkov, its signing was caused by the necessity to array equal ranking partnership relations in children rehabilitation on the level of state organizations. In Belarus the Department on humanitarian activity, the Administrative Department of the President, the ministries of education, public health protection, labour and social protection, local executive and regulatory bodies are responsible for rehabilitation of our under age citizens abroad. In Italy the rehabilitation of children from Belarus was a private initiative of the citizens and public non-governmental organizations. Apart from this, Italian laws gave possibility to consider Belarusian children, being rehabilitated there, as uncared for, and this gave birth to the facts of their illegal retention. “That is why the status of our children as the citizens of the Republic of Belarus, which have legal representatives, is clearly defined in the agreement”, — said the minister.
According to Alexander Radkov, many Italian families considered the acceptance of Belarusian children as the basis for their petition for international adoption. That is why the signed document has unambiguously divided the process of foreign rehabilitation and international adoption. Italian families are notified on a clear position of the Belarusian party, that the acceptance of children for rehabilitation doesn’t give the rights for their adoption.
The warranties of the parties on timely return of the children to their Motherland after rehabilitation have already been fixed in the agreement, the questions on rendering emergency service to small Belarusians being rehabilitated in Italy have been discussed.
