Populism and motherhood in Belarus

In 1994, Alyaksandr Lukashenka came to power on an anti-corruption ticket. Yet his first election campaign also placed considerable emphasis on family and social policy. His electoral programme, published in the newspaper Narodnaya Volia (The People’s Will) on 14 June 1994, promised extensive state support for families, motherhood and childhood. Among the proposals were childcare allowances, as well as housing loans and subsidies for young families.

Even Lukashenka’s anti-corruption rhetoric was framed in moral and paternal terms. He appealed to voters by presenting the fight against corruption as a matter of protecting the nation’s future. During the campaign he declared that corruption must be eradicated ‘for the sake of our little children’. At the same time, he used anti-corruption as a pretext to launch attacks on political opponents, which resulted in effectively removing from power the then chairman of the Supreme Soviet, democrat Stanislaŭ Shushkevich.

Sexist rhetoric

Lukashenka’s style of rule has been described by scholars as pre-emptive and adaptive authoritarianism. Both definitions highlight the regime’s volatility and capacity for adjustment. Yet beneath this flexibility, several elements have remained remarkably consistent, including sustained attention to family and social policy. This is a mixture of Soviet-era and domestically developed regulations, as well as a characteristic blend of carrot-and-stick politics. While some social groups and sectors have been punished or, at best, neglected, others have received disproportionate state support and attention. At the same time, even as the regime has become increasingly repressive and has targeted virtually anyone who might be perceived as a dissenter, it has continued to seek – and carefully cultivate – popular support.

Already during his first electoral campaign, Lukashenka was presented as a favourite among women. Since then, he has consistently relied on the female electorate. This is partly explained by demographic realities: women constitute a clear majority of the population – 52.9 per cent in 1994 and 53.8 per cent in 2025. The gap is also reinforced by differences in life expectancy. In 1994, women in Belarus lived on average to the age of 74, compared with 63 for men. By 2025, these figures had risen to roughly 79 and 69 years respectively. As these numbers indicate, the disparity remains substantial and shows little sign of narrowing in the near future.

In such a demographic context, appealing to and relying on the female electorate has clear and pragmatic foundations. At the same time, this political strategy unfolds in a society marked by persistent gender inequality and, as the sociologist Elena Gapova noted in 2023, a limited recognition of women’s autonomy. One example suffices: the United Nations Development Programme data for Belarus shows that the gender pay gap in the country amounts to around 27 per cent.

At the same time, sexist rhetoric – such as Lukashenka’s notorious remark that ‘our constitution is not written for a woman [president]’ – has long been a hallmark of the regime and has intensified in recent years. Lukashenka’s personal relationships with women have also periodically attracted public attention and speculation. His first wife, the mother of his two sons, never moved to the capital after his election and did not take on the public role usually associated with the country’s first lady. The mother of his third child, meanwhile, has never been officially presented as such.

Lukashenka frequently appears in public accompanied by young, conventionally attractive women. The state – and, as is widely believed, Lukashenka himself – controls and coordinates beauty contests such as Miss Belarus (launched in 1998) and The Beauty of Belarus (launched in 2020), alongside numerous similar competitions at both local and national levels. Large-scale and carefully choreographed spectacles, these events instrumentalize women and their bodies. At the same time, the regime has repeatedly blocked the adoption of a law on domestic violence. Women, who constitute the overwhelming majority of victims, remain without effective protection from the state.

Privileges for some, disadvantages for others

At first glance, state support for families in Belarus appears relatively substantial. Part of this system was inherited from late-Soviet social policy and combines material assistance and symbolic measures. Two key dates mark the institutionalization of this policy framework: the adoption of the Basic Guidelines of State Family Policy in 1998, and the passage of the Law on Demographic Security in 2002. Today, the key elements of Belarus’s family policy include three years of paid maternity leave, as well as childbirth benefits. The system also provides disproportionate support for large families, with many benefits reserved exclusively for them. These include housing subsidies for young families with three or more children – in 2025 there were approximately 123,000 such families in Belarus – as well as concessional housing loans. Another important instrument is the so-called ‘family capital’ – a one-time payment of roughly 10,000 US dollars that can be accessed once a child turns 18.

Large families also benefit from free school lunches and exemptions from fees for textbooks and extracurricular activities. Alongside this material support, several symbolic measures have also been introduced. The ‘Order of Mother’ – a state award granted to women who have given birth to and raised five or more children – was established in 1995. Since then, around 14,500 women have received the award. The practice echoes the Soviet title of ‘Hero Mother’, introduced under Stalin in 1944 for women who bore ten or more children.

This is not to dismiss these achievements and benefits as existing only on paper. They do exist and have been implemented consistently. Many families, particularly low-income households, receive substantial state support, which has helped improve their standard of living. The main problem of this welfare policy, however, is that – much like Lukashenka’s governing strategy more broadly – it remains highly arbitrary and dependent on the president’s personal priorities and whims. By introducing social benefits that place certain families in a privileged position while disadvantaging others, the state not only intervenes in the private lives of its citizens, but also cultivates subtle mechanisms of dependency. Rather than creating conditions in which families can provide for themselves, the system encourages reliance on paternalistic state support in exchange for loyalty and public approval.

Demographic trends during Lukashenka’s presidency provide a reality check. According to official data, Belarus’s population declined from 10.3 million in 1994 to around 9.2 million in 2025. At the same time, the country continues to record one of the lowest life expectancy rates in Europe. Taken together, these figures suggest that the state does not extend the same level of concern to all citizens. Instead, policy appears to prioritize investment in ‘new’ generations and large families, while gradually marginalizing singles, child-free couples, small families, the elderly and those who do not conform to the state’s preferred social model.

Revenge on women

The true litmus test of the state’s social policy – and its broader attitude towards women – came in 2020. The peaceful mass protests that followed the presidential election that year dealt a serious blow to Lukashenka’s authoritarian system. They showed the erosion of fear, the absence of genuine popular adoration and, most importantly, a clear and collective ‘no’ from women. Lukashenka had gravely miscalculated the level of women’s support and significantly underestimated their political agency. The protests were widely described as a ‘revolution with a female face’, not only because women assumed visible leadership roles, but also because of their massive participation. They protested openly against violence, patriarchy, sexism and inequality in Belarusian society, mobilizing in defence of their own future and that of their children and grandchildren.

Lukashenka responded with a systematic and calculated campaign of retaliation against women that continues to this day. Over the past five years, the human rights centre Viasna has reported that around 8,000 women have faced political persecution – based on documented cases alone. The proportion of women among political prisoners in Belarus has exceeded post-Stalin Soviet levels, in recent years fluctuating between roughly 13 and 15 per cent of all political prisoners, whereas in the Soviet Union the figure was closer to five per cent.

Women prisoners have been subjected to forced labour and severe disciplinary measures, including confinement in punishment cells (kartser), while their specific needs and vulnerabilities have largely been ignored. Many have been separated from their children. Dozens of women with three or more children have been prosecuted and imprisoned for organizing local cultural events or posting a handful of critical messages on social media. Tens of thousands of women and children have also been forced into exile. In emigration, many face severe obstacles to integration and are confined to low-skilled employment. They also experience poverty, physical and psychological strain, limited access to medical care, exhaustion and legal insecurity. Many are also unable to renew their Belarusian passports, which effectively deprives them of freedom of movement.

Women, especially mothers with young children and former political prisoners, belong to the most vulnerable social groups. Even after leaving the country, the Belarusian state continues to subject them to unprecedented pressure and intimidation.

‘A woman can do everything’

Against this backdrop, the regime declared 2026 the ‘Year of the Belarusian Woman’. Under this banner, it has launched a large-scale – and, in my view, deeply troubling – media campaign promoting large families and celebrating their mothers. The instrumentalization of family policy is nothing new for the Lukashenka regime. Rather, it fits in with a broader global populist appeal to ‘traditional values’ and anti-gender campaigns.

In Belarus, however, this appeal takes a distinctive form. It shows the regime’s growing obsession with stimulating birth rates and actively promoting large families. These campaigns rarely contain direct calls for women to submit to their husbands or withdraw from public life. No one openly demands that Belarusian women attend church, remain at home, or abandon their careers. On the contrary, one of the official slogans of this year’s campaign proclaims: ‘A woman can do everything.’

At first glance, this slogan sounds innocent – even empowering. But on closer inspection, it evokes the legacy of Soviet state-imposed ‘gender equality’, under which women were expected to work full time while also bearing and raising children, often without meaningful sexual education or genuine reproductive autonomy. The current campaign, however, goes even further.

While researching this article, I was particularly struck by the story of one woman, Elena Viktorovna, published on 22 February 2026 on the website of the major state newspaper Belarus Segodnya. Viktorovna, a forty-five-year-old mother of eight, was presented as exemplary. She not only cares for her children but also nursed her dying mother-in-law while pregnant with her youngest child. Still on maternity leave, she ‘happily’ spends her summers working in a ten-acre vegetable garden ‘because she loves the land’. When the children fall asleep, she knits and sews, making tablecloths, blankets, towels, sweaters and dresses for her daughters. And, as the anonymous journalist concludes, she carries all this ‘lightly, with a smile’. This is only one example. Dozens of similar stories have been published by state-controlled media, both traditional outlets and new social media platforms. They consistently portray happy, often employed, mothers with many children who supposedly cope effortlessly with all responsibilities.

At this point, I should acknowledge my own positionality: I am myself a mother of four. I know from personal experience how difficult it is to combine professional work with the care of a large family. Yet the state insists that women can manage everything – and therefore should. This is why I find this campaign alarming.

Belarusian women are being exploited. Their bodies, work, and emotional resources are being instrumentalized. They are expected to be productive workers and self-sacrificing mothers simultaneously, while their agency is taken away from them. Families are encouraged to bear more children in the name of elusive family happiness, and in exchange for paternalistic state care. The primary target audience of this campaign is the lower middle-class and working-class families. Mothers in large households, especially those with limited resources, are constantly preoccupied with basic survival: how to feed, clothe and educate their children. They are forced to take on additional unpaid work. They grow vegetables, sew, knit – all to make ends meet.

It is also known that children from such families, on average, have fewer chances in life. They are less likely to enter higher education and often join the labour market earlier, which corresponds closely to the state’s economic interests. Many young men will be conscripted into military service, with all the risks this entails.

But there is yet another unsettling consequence of these policies. By overloading women – especially mothers – with endless responsibilities, the regime deprives them of time, energy and resources for political participation. In this way, social and demographic policy becomes a tool of political control. Exhausted by everyday burdens, women are less able to mobilize, organize, and resist. It is a calculated and deeply cynical mechanism designed to ensure that a moment like 2020 does not happen again.