Mandatory employment of graduates in Belarus

Why independent trade unions regard it as a disguised form of forced labour

Belarus has once again been ranked among the 10 worst countries for workers in the ITUC Global Rights Index 2025. Since the country's relegation to the periphery of the International Labour Organization (ILO) – a consequence of the adoption of Paragraph 33 of the ILO Constitution in June 2023 – the government has taken no steps to follow the recommendations of the ILO's Commission of Inquiry. Evident violations of freedom of association, alongside arrests of members of independent trade unions, were recently spotlighted by a group of UN experts.

Beyond that, a coalition of Human Rights Organisations and Independent Trade Unions from Belarus has documented a broader range of systematic labour rights violations. One of the major issues is forced labour, which manifests different forms. Particularly pressing for young people is the forced employment of students upon graduation.

The educational system in Belarus offers two ways of university funding: state-funded and self-funded. School graduates with the highest final grades have a chance to study for free, while others cover the cost of education themselves. For students of the self-funded form, tuition fees range from 3000 to 6000 BYN (about 800 to 1600 EUR) in a year for Belarusian citizens.

In practice, the “state-funded” form means that there are no tuition fees. It is quite common in Belarus – this year, approximately 60-70% of available university places are state-funded, following a directive of the Ministry of Education to increase this proportion.

The so-called “state-funded” education comes with an obligation: graduates must enter the labour market immediately after completing studies. Although the law does not explicitly require them to work for state companies, in practice it’s typically the case. Students don’t choose their place of employment. Instead, university administrations make the decision. They receive “requests” for new workers from partner companies – most often state institutions – and directly “assign” graduates to workplaces. They must remain there for two years.

The current system has its roots in the Soviet Union, where higher education was entirely state-funded. Graduates were required to work for three years before being allowed to change jobs. During Stalin’s era, students faced the risk of criminal prosecution if they refused to perform the work assigned to them. Criminal liability was later abolished, making the system more flexible. Many students, unwilling to relocate across the vast Soviet Union for their first job, found ways to avoid mandatory assignments. After the abolition of mandatory employment in Uzbekistan in 2024, Belarus remains the only country that maintains the Soviet system.

According to the Belarusian government, the system provides “a guarantee for a first job” and serves as a form of “social security” for young people. However, in reality it functions as a disguised form of forced labour, used to compensate for labour shortages, particularly in education and selfcare sectors. The process lacks transparency and freedom of choice. Conditions at the workplace are often poor due to the low demand for assigned positions in the labour market. Students have no say in the type of occupation or even the city where they have to work.

Low salaries, discrimination, anxiety and change of profession – these are some of the consequences young people face as a result of forced employment. The fact that graduates are denied the right to leave their jobs only further reinforces its classification as forced labour. The only way to avoid it is to compensate the costs of education. However, these costs do not align with the tuition fees of self-funded education. Instead, they are significantly higher, as universities factor in all possible expenses incurred over four years – ranging from electricity and library services to housing costs. On the one hand, it reflects a cynical approach aligned with the government narrative that education is not a public good but rather a government-issued loan – one that must be repaid through two years of work for the state. On the other hand, it appears to be an intentional strategy to make opting out of forced employment practically impossible.

Even within the command economy of the Soviet Union, this approach proved ineffective. The state struggled to provide enough workplaces for graduates and was unable to keep them in assigned positions after the mandatory three-year term. Forced employment inevitably leads to high labour turnover, which in turn creates precarious working conditions.

Instead of addressing labour shortages by improving working conditions in less attractive occupations and regions, the state resorts to increasingly repressive measures - undermining the freedom of occupational choice. Moreover, in recent years, the Ministry of Education has considered expanding this policy to include all graduates, both state-funded and self-funded.

The ILO Convention No. 29 provides a clear definition of forced or compulsory labour as: “all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily.” On August 21, 1956, along with Convention No. 47 on the forty-hour workweek, the Forced Labour Convention became the first ILO Convention ratified by Belarus. However, the Belarusian government did not submit the annual report on its implementation last year. Given that students in Belarus are not permitted to choose, change, or decline their assigned workplaces after graduation, such mandatory employment clearly falls within the ILO's definition of forced labour.

The Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions (BKDP), currently operating from exile in Bremen as the association “Salidarnast”, continues to address the issue of forced post-university employment. We document violations, monitor legislative developments, and provide students with legal assistance.

The rights of young workers require special protection, yet in Belarus, their violation is institutionalized and exploited by the state. Every individual, including university graduates, has the right to freely choose their employment and should not be subjected to state-imposed labour. These principles are enshrined not only in the Belarusian Constitution but also in international agreements such as the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. The forced employment of graduates is a clear violation of these rights and must be addressed both within Belarus and at the international level.

Yauheni Dzenisenka