THERE are currently 18,000 single-parent families in Cyprus, of which only 1,400 receive benefits from the state.
The problems faced by one-parent families were brought to the forefront during yesterday’s House Institutions Committee, where deputies heard that foreign single mothers-of-three receive just £500 in state benefits each month.
The Committee had decided to discuss the specific issue following the publication of the Ombudswoman’s most recent Annual Report, which said that state services were racist towards single-parent families and discriminatory towards them in most social and financial matters.
Committee Chairman, the European Party’s Rikkos Erotokritou, said after the meeting: “It appears that there is racism in the behaviour shown by various governmental departments to certain one-parent families, which consist of a foreign spouse with a child or children, and which children were the result of a marriage to a Cypriot husband, who abandoned his foreign wife, who can’t communicate in Greek.”
With foreign women being unable to communicate with the relevant state departments and husbands refusing to pay alimony, Erotokritou said it was time the state stepped in and protected this vulnerable sector of the public.
“The Ombudswoman refers to certain findings, submits suggestions and we do not wish for these suggestions to be stored in a closet, without the practical intervention of the state,” he pointed out.
The committee added that the Labour and Finance Ministries had been invited to the Committee’s next discussion of the matter. “So we are waiting for the ministries to come to the committee and discuss what they are doing or what they will do in the near future to support these families.”
Erotokritou suggested helping single mothers with a monthly fund for their electricity bill; especially those “with three children and who receive just £500 in state benefits a month”.
He concluded, “We must act immediately in order to give solutions that can at least offer some relief to this sector of the population”.
AKEL deputy Pambis Kyritsis added: “We believe that up until today, the state has not offered sufficient measures. In our opinion, a special benefit should be created for one-parent families, based on income criteria, which will be given mainly to single women on a monthly basis to help them respond to life’s many demands.”
