By Ani Gevorgyan

Burastan Safaryan has been living a Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare for the past six years.

Safaryan and her daughter Anush live in a rented one room in decrepit building in Karakert, a village in Armenia’s Armavir Province. The room has no natural gas or water. The two barely survive on what Mrs. Safaryan erans.

Mrs. Safaryan receives no state assistance. The reason is that her former husband was ordered by a civil court to pay child support for Anush. He hasn’t paid a dime ever since the divorce six years ago.

Safaryan has, on numerous occasions, petitioned the Compulsory Enforcement Service (CES) to provide her with an affidavit affirming that her husband hasn’t been paying child support. The CES has yet to provide the woman with such documentation.

“I’ve requested an affidavit from the CES proving that we don’t receive anything, but they haven’t,” says Safaryan.

In 2011, the Armavir Provincial Court ruled that Safaryan’s former husband, Arsen Sirekanyan, pay monthly child support. He now owes 1.3 million AMD ($2,714 based on today’s exchange rate).

“When I go to the CES, saying that my former husband is working and has assets and that they are obligated to get the money I’m owed, they ridicule me and label me naïve,” says Safaryan.

“One cannot get justice in this country even with a legal court decision. The CES does nothing for common folk. My daughter and I do some seasonal work, earning a bit of money performing agricultural work. I get up at four in the morning to milk the cows. I do it again in the evening. I make 2,000 AMD ($4.20) a day,” says Safaryan.

“I can’t take care of my daughter with this. That’s why Anush doesn’t go to school. She’s upset that she doesn’t have clothes or shoes, or that she can’t buy anything at the school cafeteria with her friends.”

Four years ago, CES workers seized some furniture from the house of Safaryan’s former husband. They said it was the only property he owned.

Anush

15-year-old Anush doesn’t like to talk about the family’s problems. But she doesn’t complain.

Outside house

Mrs. Safaryan dreams of the day when she receives the child support owed her. She wants to move out of the dilapidated house they now live in and buy something normal on the outskirts of the village. She wants a better life for Anush.