28/06/2007
Lithuania debates child care
The Lithuanian delegation of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament organised a seminar on child care in the Lithuanian Parliament in Vilnius on 31 May, with more than one hundred party activists and representatives from local NGO’s and other organisations who work on child care as well as a number of international guests from Sweden, Denmark and France.
On the agenda was the link between child care and the needs of the labour market, and the relationship between child care and the role of the family.
The idea of the family is of high importance in Lithuania and at the end of the seminar there was agreement that good child care policies can help the family. The Lithuanian Minister for Labour rejected policies such as lump sum payments for mothers to raise their children at home as this was contrary to the need to attract more women into the labour market.
Childcare was also held up as an important tool to reduce child poverty. The Ministry of Labour and Social care has developed partnerships with local and international NGO’s to create child care facilities aimed at integrating children with social problems. The church plays an important role in setting up and running some of these centres.
An exchange of best practices between Lithuania and the Baltic countries, led by Peter Palshoj of SAMAK (which brings together the social democratic parties and trade union councils in the Nordic countries), took place in the afternoon. Child care in Denmark and Sweden is widespread and available to all who want it.
It was pointed out that recent studies provide evidence that child care can be a very important factor in improved integration of children with social or family problems. By providing the same conditions to well off and less well off children, child care promotes equality and increases the chances of full social and educational development for all children.
In parallel to the seminar, a documentary film called “on the verge”, concerning the lives of children in difficulties was shown and a photographic exhibition, “child and mother” was opened.
