While the number of divorces in Ukraine is slowly declining, the number of single-parent families remains high.

The children of these broken homes receive scant legal protection due to rarely-enforced family laws, corrupt courts and the ease non-custodial parents have in hiding income, according to legal experts.

According to the Ministry of Justice, during the first half of 2008, nearly 81,000 Ukrainian marriages were dissolved and over 60 percent of the divorces required child custody rulings.

Similar to trends in Europe and North America, the mother usually becomes the custodial parent, said Anna Lelyuk, a Family Law Group associate.

Ukraine’s main law regulating family relations, the Family Code, clearly defines the non-custodial parent’s responsibilities. But it is rarely enforced and the law itself is completely inadequate, she added.

In many cases the non-custodial parent successfully avoids paying even the minimum child support payment of Hr 200, or about $40 per month. This is particularly true for recently divorced young couples.

According to Daryna Osina, a family psychologist, families most prone to risk of divorce are those where the couples get married when they are 16 to 18 years old.

“At this age, young people are not ready for the responsibility of raising children. They are kids themselves. They do not have conflict resolution skills and make hasty decisions,” she added.

Another group at high risk is those who get married in their 30s. It is much harder for them to make adjustments to each other.

In both cases, such couples usually have a baby soon after the wedding. The result is a rising number of children from broken homes whose fathers don’t support them.

Ukraine’s family law stipulates that the non-custodial parent must provide at least 25 percent, or higher if the child has a medical condition, of his or her official salary in child support. This encourages divorced fathers to hide their income. The common Ukrainian employer's practice of paying employees off the books helps the deadbeat dads in doing so.

Serhiy, who prefers to remain anonymous, is an example. He is 32 years old, married twice, divorced twice and has fathered two children.

“We got married right after school and divorced in seven months. I tried to help at first, but I was a kid myself and couldn’t earn enough money. With my second wife, we just understood after a while that living together was not the best decision,” he said.

Currently, Serhiy is unemployed and looking for a job where he would be unofficially paid in order to reduce his child support payments to a minimum.

According to Lelyuk, Serhiy’s method is one of the most popular ways to avoid child support.

While the law stipulates punishments and penalties for avoiding parental responsibilities, the fact of the matter is that custodial parents find it difficult to obtain evidence of their ex-mates' true income. So there are no grounds for court action, Lelyuk added.

Having evidence of a former spouse’s true income and property can result in court proceedings, but this rarely happens.

“The law provides such a possibility. But the number of such cases is very small,” Lelyuk said.

And having the evidence doesn’t guarantee a favorable ruling.

Due to the corrupt court system, in the few cases that go to court, the decision is based on whoever paid the judge more. Thus, in most cases, mothers settle for minimum financial support required by law – about $40 – which is absurd, according to Lelyuk.

“In Germany, for example, the amount of child support is 40 percent of the non-custodial parent’s income. And, of course, there is no double bookkeeping,” she said.

“In our country, unfortunately, it is the child who is not protected by the law,” she added.