After graduate work
Every year more than 55,000 graduates must work wherever they are assigned. Why that is forced labour, what it costs the country, and what we would change.
55,800
graduates were subject to distribution in 2024 — more than half of all graduates
1–5
years of mandatory work: one to two after budget-funded study, up to five after targeted training
1.2 bn
rubles a year the economy loses to the system — 0.42% of GDP
up to 50%
of the salary of anyone who refuses and does not pay the compensation can be withheld
How it works
- 1
You study at the state's expense
The state calls this social support for young specialists and a way to staff the economy.
- 2
A commission decides where you will work
In practice the chance to choose your workplace or your conditions is extremely limited.
- 3
Refusing means paying
How the compensation is calculated is opaque, and it can far exceed the price of paid tuition. There is no way to know the figure in advance.
- 4
Then comes the court
If the debt is not paid voluntarily the case goes to court, and enforcement measures follow.
This is forced labour
Belarus has ratified both International Labour Organization conventions on forced labour — No. 29 and No. 105. Convention No. 29 defines forced labour as work performed under threat of punishment and without the person's voluntary consent. Distribution meets both tests. The system also contradicts the Constitution and the Labour Code.
Threat of punishment
Financial sanctions and the enforcement that follows are exactly what the convention means by a threat of punishment.
Without voluntary consent
The ability to choose an employer, change workplace, or end the contract remains extremely limited.
If you refuse
Wages withheld
Up to half of what you earn.
Property and accounts seized
Your property and bank accounts can be frozen.
Travel ban
You can be barred from leaving the country.
Driving licence revoked
Among other enforcement measures.
What it costs all of us
Most graduates are sent to the public sector, which is on average less productive than the private one. Distribution artificially props up organisations nobody joins willingly, and relieves them of any need to raise wages, improve conditions or modernise. Everyone loses — those who were assigned, and those working beside them. The threat of mandatory placement also pushes some young Belarusians to study abroad instead.
35–40 m
rubles a year just to run it: administration, social payments and collecting compensation through the courts
What we propose
- 01
Make the calculation of tuition costs and compensation fully transparent.
- 02
Let graduates choose their own employer and change workplace without obstruction.
- 03
Create an independent way to appeal distribution commission decisions.
- 04
Take health, family circumstances, housing and pay levels into account.
- 05
Allow the compensation to be paid in instalments or partly written off.
- 06
Publish how many graduates are still in their first job after one, three and five years.
- 07
Bring independent student-organisation representatives onto the distribution commissions.
Mandatory distribution must not be a way of supplying state organisations with cheap, dependent labour. A staffing shortage is solved by decent pay, safe working conditions, housing and room to grow — not by the threat of a fine.