One of the parents involved in the surveillance of children of preschool age should benefit from a special allowance equal to 75% of the average monthly salary given that the kindergartens darting the pandemic haven’t worked, said MPs of the Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) who presented a bill to this effect, IPN reports.
In a news conference, PAS vice president Doina Gherman said four months have passed since the state of emergency was declared in Moldova and the kindergartens were closed. In the period, thousands of families with children of preschool age have been in a very difficult situation as the parents do not have who to leave their children with, but have to go to work to maintain the family.
“I have two children of preschool age at home and they are now in the care of their grandmother. What do the parents who do not have who to leave their children with do? Take them to work with them? Leave them at home alone, unsupervised? Hire a babysitter? What money do they pay this babysitter from? And the most serious, what do the mothers who raise children alone do?” asked the MP, noting the Government allocated over 70 million lei for the Chisinau Arena at a time when the income of many families decreased drastically.
PAS vice president Veronica Roșca said it is not clear why the Government abandoned these children and these parents as the families have the highest poverty rate in Moldova. “Each second family with children lives on the salary. What did the Government do in the period? Nothing. It didn’t support the parents or the preschool education institutions. We appreciate the doctors who have the courage to say that it is risky to reopen kindergartens, but it is immoral and inhuman to abandon these parents when they have no support from the state,” noted the MP.
Cristina Bordei, the mother of a boy aged ten and of a six-year-old girl, in the same news conference said they are in a difficult situation. “I work for eight hours a day. Each morning, I and my husband leave for work with concern as we leave two children alone at home. To make sure they are fine, we agreed to have contact through Viber and that they should spend the time in the same room so that I could see them both and talk to them,” stated Cristina Bordei.
The national education institutions were closed in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic on March 11.