Launch of AKEL’s “Young Parents At the Forefront” campaign

 

Speech by the General Secretary of the Central Committee of AKEL, Stefanos Stefanou

20 October 2023, AKEL C.C. Press Office, Nicosia

Dear friends,

Today we are launching a new AKEL campaign, a major nation-wide campaign, which will focus on the problems and needs of young parents, especially working parents. Why such a campaign is demanded has been documented – as you have just heard – with facts and statistics, even from the European Commission’s recommendations on Cyprus’ shortcomings in the field of social policy for families and children.

More than that, we all know from our own daily experience and the reality our children and families face with the obstacles and difficulties that a new parent encounters today, which of course haven’t appeared out of nowhere, but add to the job insecurity, the high cost of living and the housing problem that young couples in our country also are confronted with.

Our campaign “Young Parents at the Forefront” therefore aims to bring to the forefront proposals, demands and assertions so that Cyprus can pursue a modern and progressive social policy for children and families, with public structures, infrastructures, benefits and programmes that meet the needs and responsibilities of working parents.

Our understanding is based on the principle that everything to do with the acquisition and care of a child cannot be considered as an individual and family responsibility that is the sole responsibility of young parents or even grandparents who are called upon to assist in meeting the obligations posed by everyday life. Nor can these responsibilities end up falling disproportionately on the shoulders of women, given that stereotypes continue to burden them with dual roles and responsibilities both at work and at home.

Childcare and support for parents is a social responsibility and the state has an obligation to set out a vision, elaborate long-term schemes and allocate the relevant funds.

The campaign that AKEL is launching today is based on a package of proposals which you can see in the presentation on the screen and in detail in the materials we have provided.

The first priority is for our country to acquire a comprehensive and modern network of public infrastructures and programmes for the care and employment of infants, toddlers and children – including after-school care – that meet the needs of local communities and are affordable. The state, and local government authorities in particular, must take a much more prominent and active role in this field. This is precisely why it is absolutely necessary to increase the allocation of funds for Community Welfare Councils to run childcare structures and programmes at a local level. At the same time, the projects already included in the Recovery and Resilience Plan 2021-2026 for the “Establishment of Multipurpose Child Care Centres and Child Care Centres” must be fully and timely implemented.

Another innovative proposal is to promote the creation of crèches and nurseries in large public and private organizations to serve workers with young children and the creation of breastfeeding facilities in public spaces and large public and private organizations.

AKEL also proposes the introduction of a “Neighbourhood Childminder” programme, which would be an upgrade of the existing programme of childminders who look after children in their own premises, to a new institution that would provide care and childcare services for infants and children in their own homes for the time agreed with parents (either working hours or afternoon/evening). It will operate in analogy to the home care programme for the elderly and disabled and will respond to needs at a local community, parish and neighbourhood level.

A necessary step to facilitate the daily life of young parents – but also of our cities as a whole – is the extension of the “door-to-door” school bus service, which until last year operated only in 13 schools. The proposal has recently been discussed on AKEL’s initiative in the Parliamentary Education Committee, where the need for what we are advocating in our campaign became apparent. Namely, the strategic planning for a school bus system should cover the whole of Cyprus and safety measures should be introduced for children with disabilities and children under six years of age.

At the same time, apart from the educational and pedagogical value, we support policies for:

• Extension of compulsory pre-primary education from the age of 4.
• Extension of all-day schooling to all levels of education, starting and ending at the beginning and end of the school year.
• Expansion and upgrading of the successful custom of summer public schools by extending their operation to cover August which makes it even more imperative for air conditioning to be installed in all classrooms.

The other major arena of our proposals is the leave for working parents so that they can be with their newborn children or to be able to take time off work to care for their children which is one of the most important support measures that is of course beneficial for the healthy development of children and for families as a whole. We therefore want to open up the debate on maternity and paternity leave, parental leave, childcare leave, leave in cases of force majeure and the corresponding benefits. We know that not everything can be resolved overnight, nor will we be engaging in empty talk and issuing boundless pledges.

• However, we must give an answer as to whether or not the State has as its objective what is also a universal demand of society. Namely, the extension of maternity leave from the first child to 26 weeks, as recommended by the World Health Organisation. If this is the objective, then we will all work to find the ways and the timetable to fulfill this goal.
• We are calling -and this is imperative – for self-employed people to be covered by paid parental leave, because the previous government, with the bill that they submitted last year, left them out.
• We also call for parental leave to be revised so that it can be taken by working parents up to the child’s 15th birthday (instead of the current 8th birthday). This is also included in the election manifesto of Nikos Christodoulides, as well as a number of other promises on which we will be asking the government for a position on the progress of their implementation as part of our campaign.
• We also propose and demand that the maternity/paternity/parental leave allowance, currently at 72% of a salary, be supplemented through collective agreements and employer obligation and/or through the state budget.

The third pillar of our campaign is the provision of support from the state and the health system throughout the whole process including childbearing, pregnancy, childbirth, health of the mother and the newborn child. In this area, we have outlined a set of 8 priorities among which are:

• The development of home-based delivery of obstetric and perinatal services and maternal and child health visitor services
• Full and direct subsidy of IVF treatment for first child for low income groups with free provision of all indicated medication based on individual needs.
• The subsidy for the veracity test, a non-invasive prenatal test that detects certain genetic syndromes, which costs €600 and is only carried out in the private sector.

At the same time, one issue our campaign will focus on is the situation of the gynaecological and obstetric clinics of public hospitals that need drastic support, together with the need to strengthen and expand the neonatal intensive care unit in Nicosia and Limassol and children’s intensive care unit at the Makarios Hospital, as well as the introduction of psychological counselling support for parents of hospitalised children.

In addition, we call for the upgrading of the “Baby Dowry” programme, which provides baby items and personal hygiene and care items for the child and mother to vulnerable families. Unfortunately, the budget is set to be reduced by EUR 1 million, while we are calling for it to be at least maintained at the level of the previous programming period, extended to other groups of low-income couples and, of course, for an end to the huge delays that make the provision of specific items obsolete. In addition, we are calling on the government to consider including baby items and essentials for new mothers in a reduced VAT scheme.

Our proposals also include proposals and priorities for specific groups of parents such as parents of children with disabilities, parents of large families and single-parent families, which today in Cyprus are estimated to number around 30-35,000 and half of them are in poverty or at risk of poverty.

Finally, within the framework of our campaign we will contribute to the dialogue on the modernisation of the legislation concerning the fostering of children and adoption, in order to simplify and speed up the procedures.

Dear friends,

Many perhaps will suggest that our proposals are good ideas in theory, that they are easy words from the opposition, but are difficult to put into practice. We do not underestimate the difficulties, but I will give a concrete example that proves that when we want to, we can achieve our goals.

In 2014, AKEL submitted in Parliament a proposal for the creation of Summer Public Schools. That’s to say, selected public schools in each district to run creative activity programmes for children during the summer holidays. Initial reactions were cautious, if not negative. Eventually, however, our proposal was adopted, implemented and today there are 58 summer public schools and kindergartens operating throughout Cyprus, with over 5,000 school pupils and the number is growing rapidly year by year.

This AKEL proposal, which has become an institution, has been embraced because it responds to the needs of working parents who cannot afford to stay at home with their children during the summer months, nor do they have the financial means to otherwise cover childcare. In addition, it provides children with creative quality activities and recreation and an opportunity for hundreds of teachers to supplement their income.

Dear friends,

Our campaign will not be a campaign with only us speaking. It is first and foremost a dialogue with society and in particular with young people who are parents or who will become parents, with the aim of listening and enriching – or even revising – our proposals.

For that reason, in the period ahead we will be visiting childcare centres and crèches all over Cyprus to see the needs and problems up close.

We shall meet and listen to parents, mothers and fathers, but also grandparents to discuss about their daily life and their views on what we propose.

We will organise specialised round table discussions with government agencies, scientists and social organisations.

We shall also discuss with guests from abroad about European and international experience on social policy for families and children. At the same time, we shall take new initiatives in Parliament to promote solutions.

For AKEL, the development and progress of a country is not measured by how many skyscrapers and casinos it has. It is measured by the hospitals, universities, nurseries, libraries and theatres it has which should be accessible to society. It is measured by how far ahead it is on issues such as leave for working parents and its overall social policy that should have children and young people at the centre of its attention.