The Presidential Programme "Children of Belarus" for 2001-2005 was approved by Decree of the President of the Republic of Belarus of May 24, 2001, No 281.

The Head of State Alexander Lukashenko has instructed to finalize the draft programmes “Children of Belarus” and “Young Talents of Belarus” for 2006-2010 and to submit them for approval as early as in March. The above documents were discussed on the 8th of February 2006,  at a meeting presided by the President.

To increase birth rates is a major direction of the social policy in Belarus. “The fact that only 10 million people reside on our territory, which is far from being small, poses a global problem for the State. Our land is quite able to feed 30 million. It’s indisputably so. Might there be any security if there will be none to defend this land? The importance of the problem is so great that, perhaps, we’ll have to revise many programmes, starting from housing construction to providing financial help to our citizens, Alexander Lukashenko emphasized.

“Today, a family has one-two children on average. Larger families with three and more children are the exception. It is necessary that every family in Belarus should have at least three children. In that case we will have a certain growth in population. Can our families and women give birth to three and more children? Of course, they can. But to raise three children is not an easy thing. That is why this “bottleneck” should be dealt with on a larger scale and an appropriate help and support must be provided to families who wish to have three and more children,” the President said.

The meeting focused particular attention on the social orphanhood problem. The President demanded that this problem should be cardinally solved this year.

“As of today, there are more that 30 thousand orphaned children in Belarus. Most of them are social orphans, meaning children whose parents are alive. About 10 thousand criminal cases were investigated in 2005 against the parents evading their childcare responsibilities. This year this problem must be unconditionally put and end to. There must be no state-maintained children whose parents are alive. The exception is the children whose parents are either handicapped or ill,” underscored Alexander Lukashenko.