If the announcements come true Tatjana Macura, minister without portfolio in charge of gender equality, prevention of violence against women and economic and political empowerment of women, Serbia should receive in the next three months Alimony fund.
It was announced by the President of Serbia in March 2025, and now by Minister Matsura.
"I am happy to announce the introduction of the Alimony Fund as a form of protection for children and single parents in the event that the other parent does not fulfill the obligation prescribed by law," said Matsura, reports FoNet.
She said that she hopes that the adoption of that law will mark the first 100 days of the Government, according to the statement.
The new government was elected on April 16, which means that this fund should come to life in the next three months.
What is the Alimony Fund?
In July 2024, the proposal for the Law on the Alimony Fund reached the Serbian Parliament - as a proposal from the opposition, which has been talking about this solution for years.
The representative of the proponent was MP Marinika Tepić of the Party of Freedom and Justice (SSP), and the proposal was signed by 30 MPs of the opposition. Among them, in addition to the SSP, are also members of the Serbia Center parliamentary group, as well as the Environmental Uprising.
The alimony fund would represent a fund from which children whose parent - even though he is obliged to do so by an enforceable document, i.e. a legally binding and enforceable court judgment - would not pay child support for at least two consecutive months.
The right to temporary support would last until the age of 18, that is, until the parent begins to fully fulfill the obligation of support.
By the way, the existence of such a fund has already been introduced into the Croatian and Montenegrin legislation, while the introduction of an alimony fund would be a novelty for the domestic legal system.
Avoidance of alimony payments
According to the data of the Republic Institute of Statistics, more than 9.000 marriages are divorced in Serbia every year, of which more than 5.000 involve children.
According to some estimates, only a third of divorced fathers, or three-quarters of mothers, regularly pay monthly allowances.
Failure to pay maintenance is a criminal offense punishable by a fine or up to three years in prison. However, practice shows that such procedures often take a long time, and maintenance debtors use various methods to avoid the obligation - they hide property, real estate, resign, so that the executors could not carry out the confiscation. The debts are up to one million dinars, RTS wrote earlier.
Imprisonment is rarely used. For example, in 2021, 1.795 criminal charges were filed for non-payment of alimony, and 123 people ended up in prison.
However, a prison sentence cannot provide financial support to a child at a time when it is needed. This is how the idea of the Alimony Fund was born, from where child support would be paid instead of the parent who does not respect his legal and judicial obligation, and this fund would then be refunded from the parent who was obliged to fulfill the obligation to provide support, but did not do so.
