Belarusian Interior Ministry to introduce curfew for teenagers 57 8.02.2011, 13:33

Minors will be banned from being on streets after 11:00 pm.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus has prepared its proposals to a teenage curfew law, which would prohibit minors to be in public places after 11:00 pm without parents or persons responsible for them, BelTA learnt from the ministry’s crime prevention.

As the Interior Ministry thinks, the curfew would be an additional measure to prevent juvenile delinquency, as teenagers are breaking the law mainly in the evening or at night.

About 15 thousand minors are currently registered in the police, the Ministry says. However, juvenile crime rate has been reduced by 41.3% since 2006.

As the Interior Ministry notes, certain steps for the introduction of curfews for teenagers have already been taken. On January 12, 2011, the new regulation of the Administrative Code, entered into force. Under article 17.12 “Access to discos, cultural and recreational clubs for minors” owners of night clubs can are subject to fine if there are minors in their clubs after 10:00 pm. Club owners, both individual entrepreneurs and legal persons, can be fined of from 10 to 50 basic units (one basic unit equals to Br35,000) in case this article is violated.