JINHA

NEWS CENTER – It is women who have paid the highest price for the austerity policies forced on Greece, according to Afroditi Stampouli, member of Parliament for Syriza.

In Greece, calls to the emergency hotline for women suffering from violence have increased rapidly in the wake of austerity policies. The increase points to the deep consequences of austerity for Greek women.

“Poverty and insecurity are related to the increase of violence against women in the course of the last three years,” said Syriza MP Afroditi Stampouli, speaking at the Left Block Party’s Feminist Congress on May 16th-17th in a speech that appeared on Greek women’s website Tomov.gr.
The previous government’s austerity measures in Greece have targeted programs for women particularly intensively. In a country where services for uninsured pregnant women were once free, a birth in a public hospital now costs €700 for a natural birth, €1200 for a Caesarean birth—with prices double for migrant women. Afroditi noted that unemployment and poverty rates are higher for women than for men in Greece; while 25% of men are unemployed, 31.4% of women are unemployed. The poverty rate for single mothers is an astonishing 60%. Access to insurance and social services has decreased precipitously.

“This situation has forced women to return to their traditional roles, since childcare and care for older and sick relatives stop being the state’s responsibility and being provided by professionals—thus becoming women’s duty again, like in the traditional patriarchal mentality,” said Afroditi.

Women’s resistance has already pointed to a way out. Women have long led the organizing of the popular solidarity efforts that have emerged in the context of austerity, such as social kitchens and legal services. Afroditi described how the “tasks that according to stereotypes belong to the private sphere are brought to the public sphere” under the leadership of women.

The new Syriza government has taken several measures to reverse austerity policies. These policies have included not just immediate intervention for economic welfare (rent and electricity assistance, restoring the minimum wage), but women-oriented policies like the implementation of the Istanbul Convention on violence against women. However, efforts to fund social services and programs are hindered by the ongoing consequences of austerity.

“Women in Greece are still suffering under the results of austerity and, although the new government does its best to reverse them, it is more difficult than expected. In a country where the GDP has decreased by 20% while the working people have lost 20% of their income and capitalists have increased their profits, strict and fair taxation is a priority,” said Afroditi. “At the same time, as the national debt has risen from 126% to 177%, it is impossible to have growth and a recovery of the economy, unless the negotiations with the neoliberal European governments lead to a fair result.”

This Sunday, the direction of those negotiations—and the attacks on women through austerity policies—will go to a vote in Greece’s referendum.

(cm)