Single parents alone during the pandemic

Marija B. (34) from Podgorica is a single mother of an eight-year-old boy.

She has been divorced for more than four years, and says that during that time she considered herself luckier than most single parents.

Until the emergence of the coronavirus and the first closure of Montenegro, in March.

"Although the ex-husband rarely pays the alimony awarded, I felt that my son and I were happier than most other single-parent families, and I was grateful for that. I have a decent administrative job, and I also work privately - tutoring school-aged children in several school subjects. From all that, I managed to service the mortgage installment, utilities, pay for daycare for the child because the school doesn't have the space for that, and very often I was able to make my son happy with little things that make children happy," says Marija.

The trouble, he says, started in March with the appearance of the first cases of the virus in Montenegro.

"At that time, Montenegro was closed. I had to go to my permanent job every day, with working hours of eight hours, and he mostly stayed alone. "I couldn't let my parents take care of him, because they are older and they are a risk group due to chronic diseases," says Podgoričanka.

The only measure that the then Government provided to almost all parents of children under 11 years of age - to take paid leave and be with their children, especially due to school obligations that took place online, Marija could not use.

Her employer required an eight-hour attendance at the workplace.

Thus, from 8 a.m. to 16 p.m., the little one spent time alone, but also did his homework.

"How many times have I heard: 'Why don't you complain to the labor inspectorate?' or 'Why don't you report them?'. I knew about all those options, but I also knew that because of that application I could lose my job, and I have to feed my child. And to pay the housing loan. "We barely made it past two months of closure," Marija points out.

When the start of the school year was postponed to October 1, Marija had a whole month of worries again.

During September, she did not even have the right to paid leave. Although the authorities promised parents that they would provide for the care of children under the age of 11, they did not make this legally official.

"I am careful when no one is looking at me in the office, so I call him on a video call. My heart is in my heels if he doesn't answer right away, because the apartment is on the third floor... It's the same now. Very often he is home alone, because now one month I manage to pay day care, but the next I don't. Due to the pandemic, parents are afraid to take private lessons for their children, which is why I work much less privately. There is almost no help from the ex-husband. Not financially, but not when it comes to the time they spend together. He wants to spend exactly as much time with the child as the court has awarded. Now I really feel how it is for most single parents", concludes Marija.

Fear of employer revenge or are there rare cases of rights violations?

The right to paid leave to look after children under the age of 11 in the event of an interruption in the work of educational institutions was the only measure related to helping all parents during the pandemic.

The order enabling this right did not apply to employees in healthcare, the police, utilities... due to the nature of the work they perform.

Many parents employed in the private sector, like Marija B., could not use this right, because they were afraid of the employer's revenge. However, there were also those who reported the violation of this right to the Directorate for Inspection Affairs.

"One of the parents/guardians/adoptive parents or a single parent of a child who is not older than 11 years of age has the right to paid leave from work according to the orders of the Government during the epidemiological situation, due to the interruption of educational work in public and private educational institutions. In such a situation, the employer is obliged to provide this right to each employee with a request for the use of this right and appropriate evidence (birth certificate for the child, confirmation by the other spouse/foster/adoptive parent that he does not use the same right with his employer...). The employee is entitled to salary compensation for the period of absence from work due to paid leave in the amount of 100 percent of his salary for the days of paid leave," the Administration explains.

"During the pandemic of the new coronavirus, there were a dozen reports from employees regarding the denial of the right to paid leave to one of the parents of a child under the age of 11. All applications were dealt with in a timely manner and the employer was ordered to enable the use of this right to every applicant who was established. However, there were several unfounded applications from employees in activities that are excluded from the use of this right, i.e. whose continuous activity is necessary for the duration of the prescribed measures (health, communal activities...)", says the Administration.

They also point out that part of the applications related to the employer's request that the parents' right to paid leave be replaced by an annual vacation.

"And here we acted depending on the specific facts in each case, i.e. depending on whether the vacation was from the previous year or this year. Namely, annual leave as an acquired right from the previous year had to be used by half of this year (according to the old Labor Law), and for this year we have a more flexible approach according to the provisions of the new Labor Law. In any case, if the use of annual leave was started according to the legal procedure (a decision was made to the employee according to the established plan for the use of annual leave), that right was used, and then the leave was paid. There, we took the position that we cannot talk about replacing paid leave with annual leave, but about using both rights in the most efficient way, because in both cases the employees will be with the children, which is the final goal," said the Management.

They also remind that during September there was a legal vacuum when it came to the only measure that helped parents.

"During that period, there were no grounds for using this leave, and the Labor Inspectorate reacted according to the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health," concludes the Directorate for Inspection Affairs.

Dukić: Single parents should not have been allowed to remain unemployed

Ivana Dukić, the coordinator of the Support Group for single-parent families in the Association of Parents, says that through communication with parents, they concluded that there are many problems.

"It had to be precisely defined and, as an exception, prescribed by orders what in situations where the measures prescribed by the order and court decisions are in conflict, but, on the other hand, we have parents who do not know what to do because the institutions transfer jurisdiction from one to another, and what is the worst - children who fall out. Single parents do not have support even when the other parent does not provide alimony, especially now, when the economic crisis has deepened. "Most parents support their children themselves and no additional assistance is provided for them," says Dukić.

He also notes that there are major problems when it comes to education: "All children must have access to the Internet and a suitable device in order to be able to attend classes. An additional problem arises when there are more children in the family".

Dukić also warns that many parents have lost their jobs or their earnings have been reduced.

"We believe that this should not have been allowed, especially when it comes to single parents," warns Dukić.

It is not better, she says, even in the region.

"As far as comparative practices from the countries of the region are concerned, they all generally encountered the same problems. What we would single out is the example of Serbia, which recognized single parents as a vulnerable category by designing a special grant line for them and announcing a competition for the economic empowerment of women from the category of single-parent families," concludes Dukić.

"Vijesti" survey: Two thirds of the respondents do not know that there were measures that protected single parents

That Maria's story is not an isolated one is confirmed by the data obtained from the survey on the "Vijesti" portal.

1.009 of our readers participated in the survey, and more than two-thirds of them (816 respondents, i.e. 73,55 percent) did not know that the Government had ever passed an order protecting and helping single parents during the pandemic.

262 respondents, which is 23 percent, believe that the Government's measures to help single parents, that is, single-parent families, were not adapted to the crisis situation and that the state did not do everything to protect this target group.

Only 2,81 percent, or 31 respondents, believe that the state's measures and assistance were adapted to the crisis situation and that the authorities did everything to protect single parents.

Both the comments on the portal and Facebook page "Vijesti" indicate that citizens are extremely dissatisfied with the way the state treated single-parent families.

"As far as we know, single parents are social cases, but married couples who have children and have been without work for almost a year are fighting the battle alone with problems. Only you know who you helped. How did you help pensioners who receive 140 euros and less? They divide according to local communities as they see fit... Under urgently stricter measures for non-payment of alimony, and if you think that a single mother can survive a month with two minor children on 140 euros, then it's better that we are gone... What measures should we evaluate? They are at the mercy of the managers... I never received anything, I contacted the ministry several times, they did not respond, I have been a single mother for 20 years, my child is in the third year of the Faculty of Law, they promised, but never fulfilled their promise... ", are just some of the comments that followed our survey.

Due to the definition in Macedonian law, most single parents are invisible

The state has left us at the mercy of all.

This is the conclusion of Macedonian single parents, who were included in two measures to overcome difficulties after the beginning of the epidemic, but not completely.

The main obstacle in the implementation of the measures stems from the definition of the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy for the term "single parent", which includes only those who perform parental duties for the child themselves, because the other parent is unknown, deceased, missing or does not perform parental duties for justified reasons. for example if he is serving a prison sentence but not divorced.

Thus, the one-time aid measure of six thousand denars (100 euros) did not apply to those parents whose ex-spouses do not pay alimony. The Association of Single Parents of the City of Skopje demands an urgent change in the definition, as well as the creation of a State Maintenance Fund, from which alimony would be paid in the event of a delay of more than three months.

However, a significant obstacle also appeared when applying for financial assistance for those single parents recognized by the Ministry as such.

The president of the NGO "Jedna može" Doroti Pačkova accuses the state of not creating a register of single parents, despite calls, and now the application "is done manually".

"The condition was to submit two statements, one from the child, where only one parent is listed, and another statement from the parent himself. To get any confirmation from the Administration, you need ten working days, and the application deadline was seven days, adds Pačkova.

On the other hand, Minister of Labor Jagoda Šahpaska says that single parents are continuously helped, but with an emphasis on those who are at social risk.

The story about the impact of the pandemic on the quality of life of single parents was created in cooperation with the daily newspaper "Vijesti" from Montenegro and "Slobodni pecat" from North Macedonia.