Two two- or three-year-old girls draw with crayons between the tomatoes, oranges and lemons in the small space left in the fruit and vegetable bar of a small market stall. It is a common scene in the daily life of thousands of girls and boys.
Beto is already four years old, he is the nephew of my best friend and one of the minors who attended the children’s stay of the extinct program of the Ministry of Welfare, formerly Sedesol. Today, his grandmother Juanita, almost 80 years old, takes care of him while he is not at school. His parents work in their small family car repair business.
The situation of other parents is not the same, some had to find a private nursery, others had to reorganize their working hours to spend time caring for their daughters, others had to take them with them.
Almost three years ago, the administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador decided to eliminate this program, citing corruption in it. It was said that the resources would not disappear, “there will be only a few changes”. By this they mean stopping resource transfers to these units and transferring money directly to mothers or fathers. The support is 800 pesos per month and is delivered bi-monthly.
A target population of 329,781 girls and boys between the ages of 0 and 3 was cited, representing 4.7% of the total population of that group at that time. To be a beneficiary of this program, it was necessary to prove that the mothers or fathers did not have any other kind of social security (IMSS or ISSSTE). These figures, and other results of the research done, were by Ariadna Montiel during the press conference on 18 February of 2019.
The damage counts
Now, three years later, we are repeating what we said then: the closure of childcare centers instead of changing the system contributes to structural violence against women. But not only that, it also violates one of the basic rights of minors, the right to care.
This impact is disproportionately greater for the female population, given that we live in a country where women spend three times as much time on homework and care as men. According to figures from the Satellite Account of Unpaid Work in Homes 2020, women spend a quarter of the year just looking after other people and caring for the home; for men, the figure is 8 percent.
In Mexico, the participation rate of the female population is 44.6%, while for the male population it is 76.2%, according to the latest update of the ENOE (National Survey of Occupation and Employment).
These figures reflect a reality, which was also exacerbated by the pandemic and the restrictions: women spend much more time caring for other people without receiving payment for it, and this drives them indirectly and directly out of the paid labor market.
Even with direct economic transfers to the beneficiaries, the problem increased. On the one hand, resources are insufficient for minors to gain access to an optimal care system; on the other hand, women mostly paid the consequences of the gradual extinction of these nurseries.
“I think the fact that the child care program has disappeared has had a big impact on the women who left their children in these care facilities, who are women who generally worked in the formal or informal sector, and therefore had time. to do it. Many women have had to stop working, given the impossibility of leaving their children in day care centers, or enrolling them in private care centers, which affects their economy, ”Eufemina Basilio, a doctor and researcher in economic sciences at UNAM, told El Economista said. Morale.
Mothers and fathers were most affected. But there is another side of the coin: the staff who took care of the nurseries. Basilio Morales highlighted the impact that the termination of the program has had and still has.
“Perhaps it paid off for President López Obrador’s austerity program, but the truth is that it also caused the loss of jobs of the people who worked in these day care centers, and who eventually joined the list of unemployed. And here we must adds that apart from these cuts and the disappearance of many programs that supported women, which greatly affected their safety and development. “
The closure of day care centers contradicts one of the fundamental principles of national public policy: equality between women and men as a transversal axis. At the same time, it violates the rights of minors.
The beneficiaries receive 1 600 pesos every two months, but on many occasions it is not converted into optimal and specialized care for boys and girls. Spending more than eight consecutive hours drawing, eating and sleeping in a fruit and vegetable store also violates the rights of minors.
Where should we walk?
“I think the enormous work and effort that women put in should be made visible, many of them work double or triple shifts, especially because of the pandemic, as they have to keep doing homework, those in the field, and now at home contributing to the care of children taking distance classes, and sick family members in light of this pandemic, ”said Basilio Morales.
In Mexico, women work about 77.6 hours a week: 37.9 in paid work and 39.7 in homework. That is, they have an even longer day for household and care tasks and do not receive payment for it.
For their male counterparts, total working time is 62.9 hours per week: 47.7 hours for paid work and 15.2 hours for homework.
Revaluation and redistribution of these tasks is essential to achieve gender equality in economic matters. “The foregoing should make us aware as a family, so that everyone supports women in domestic work, or care, as the truth is that it is part of the obligation of everyone who lives in the same house, and not just from the mother, or the woman, ”said the specialist.
For the equitable participation of women in the productive market, important points need to be addressed, such as equal pay and equal working conditions between men and women, as well as the end of discrimination against women in the workplace, and gender-based violence, which although they were thought to no longer exist, they still affect thousands of women in all work streets, she added.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx