Maternity is penalized, Daniela Terzi-Barbarosie

„ Public policies don’t offer any alternatives for families with children and parenthood is penalized”, said Daniela Terzi-Barbarosie, president of the National Council of NGOS, head of the Partnership for Development Center, in an interview called “March 8 is my professional day” offered to Info-Prim Neo. According to Daniela Terzi-Barbarosie, maternity is fined in several ways. “Parenthood is being penalized through the lack of quality social services for couples which want to continue their careers. Moreover, even worse, when a mother takes a maternity leave to take care of her child until kindergarten age (3-4 years), she can’t get her job back. Somebody else gets it. She can’t find another one because she is discriminated. She has a baby who can get sick and employers don’t like having workers who monthly go on a sick-leave because of their children. Another problem is that during mother’s maternity leave, her male colleagues worked, participated in trainings, thus gaining a professional advantage over any woman, regardless of her proficiency before the leave. These are the paradoxes that maintain women’s family vs. career dilemma in the 21st century”, she concluded. Daniela Terzi-Barbarosie says Moldovan laws guarantee citizens equal rights (for men and women) to participate in social and economic life, to train for a certain profession and have a job, to promote and engage in distributing advantages, to benefit of social protection when needed, etc. However, the actual situation is far from what’s written in the laws. “Although de jure women are treated equally and promoted, de facto they aren’t protected and promoted by the society”. Among an ordinary Moldovan woman’s daily problems, Daniela Terzi-Barabrosie enumerated: gender discrimination in social and professional relationships, misogynic and sexist approach, professional discrimination and segregation which lead to differences in income, although laws guarantee the right to “equal work and equal wages”, insufficient social protection, low pensions, gender education, infrastructure and transport issues. She highlighted that the situation of women with a social status below average is even worse. “For example, a woman of middle age, in X village, where there’s no sewerage, no water and gas supply, and public transport to the district center comes once a week. She has 2 children, one of them being severely ill, and is a medical assistant responsible for 3 villages. Sad, isn’t it? Or a gypsy old woman, with disability pension, a hectare of land, no children and widow. It’s even more complicated, right?”. When speaking about Moldovan women’s achievements, Daniela Teri-Barbarosie mentioned “the daily ones, the wise and elegant way of dealing with problems, of discussing them and bringing them to public attention, it’s managing a house or a town hall, giving birth and raising a child, creating a likeable ambiance wherever they are, efficiently solving family, community and country problems, loving and being worthy of others’ love”.