RAS 12 - JRL 6535
SOCIETY
7. ALTERNATIVE CIVILIAN SERVICE
SOURCE. Tatyana Maleva, Al'ternativnaia grazhdanskaia sluzhba v Rossii: byt' ili ne byt'? [Alternative Civilian Service in Russia: To Be Or Not To Be?]. Brifing Moskovskogo tsentra Karnegi [Carnegie Moscow Center Briefing], Tom 4, Vypusk 4, April 2002.
According to Article 59 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, a citizen whose convictions or religious faith do not permit him to do military service has the right to do alternative civilian service instead. Until now this right has existed only on paper. On April 17 a draft law on alternative civilian service (ACS) finally passed its first reading in the Duma. However, the author is far from sure that the law will be adopted, or if adopted prove workable.
It is generally assumed that young men on ACS will be assigned heavy and non-prestigious jobs as cleaners in hospitals, in homes for invalids and the elderly, on the roads, and the like -- that is, jobs for which the normal labor supply is insufficient. But if ACS becomes a mass phenomenon, will enough places be found for them all? Under what conditions will they work? What will they be paid? What will it cost the state? None of these issues have yet been clarified.
The military brass and their supporters, wishing to minimize the appeal of ACS to potential draftees, try to make it as burdensome as possible. That is why the term of ACS has been set at four years, twice as long as military service. This criterion also requires that those doing ACS, like military draftees, not be allowed to work near home and live with their families but be sent to other parts of the country. However, such an arrangement would be much more expensive for the state, which would have to provide them with accommodation near their place of service.
Can ACS help resolve the crisis of Russia's military draft system by providing an alternative option acceptable to a large proportion of the numerous young men inclined to evade the draft? (1) Ms. Maleva thinks not. ACS would cater to a small minority of highly motivated individuals with deeply held objections of principle to military service, but not to the much larger numbers concerned mainly for their own comfort and advantage. Thus in a survey conducted by the Institute of Youth, boys of pre-draft age and their parents were asked: "If you had free choice, which would you prefer?" The responses were as follows:
* 24 percent of boys and 21 percent of parents preferred military service.
* 28 percent of boys and 38 percent of parents preferred alternative civilian service.
* 36 percent of boys and 31 percent of parents preferred neither military nor civilian service.
* 12 percent of boys and 10 percent of parents didn't know.
NOTE
(1) According to recent polls, over half of the Russian public sympathizes with draft evaders. See Post-Soviet Armies Newsletter, October 14, 2002 (at http://www.psan.org).
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