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Medlemmar i Haro skriver nu en blogg tillsammans, och kommenterar aktuella händelser och artiklar.
Läs bloggen!
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...för och emot Vårdnadsbidraget!
För, Haro´s Jonas Himmelstrand
För, Kristdemokraterna
Emot, Arbetarrörelsens Tankesmedja
Emot, Socialdemokraterna |
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Haro’s Platform on Family Politics
Objectives
Haro aims to put the child in focus.
This means that Swedish family policies must respect the individual needs and demands of each family.
Parenthood must be defined by freedom of choice and equality.
These objectives should be gained in accordance with the UN-convention on the Child’s Rights.
The Child in Focus
To put the child in focus means:
• To give sufficient time for each child.
Children need adults at hand, to see to each child’s individual needs, and to encourage and support the child’s initiatives. A close relative can not always be substituted – young children’s emotional needs must never be overlooked or compromised.
• That parents to a great extent put the needs of the child ahead of their own.
• That society regards the cost of children’s upbringing as a crucial investment.
• To trust the child’s own intuition for development and allow for freedom when at play.
Parenthood
Parenthood implies both rights and obligations. Instinctively we wish to care for, foster and put our mark on our children. We voluntarily make sacrifices for their sake. In society there must be room for these instinctive actions. Swedish family policies have dislocated the natural human balance. This has involved a steering towards a one-way lifestyle model for parents, employment and daycare. This is unfortunate since it does not correspond to all parents’ visions of what parenthood should mean.
All obstacles must be cleared for parents – single as well those co-habitating, to use their natural rights to live with, care for and bring up their own children. Only the parents themselves can decide how much time should be dedicated to maintain and strengthen the bonds between them and their children.
Parents must be given financial means and support to bring up their children according to their own beliefs. Without this support it is difficult to be strong as a parent – strong in front of your children, society and yourself. Parents are an ignored resource and reservoir of expertise in society. They should be treated with greater respect. They should be encouraged and strengthened in their roll as parents.
(Compare article no. 5 of the UN-convention on the Child’s Rights.)
Complete parenthood also demands that it be carried out in a more children-friendly, balanced society. This is a model where family, work, leisure, habitat and personal development are integrated without obstacles.
Freedom of Choice
Haro feels that it is important to promote the family as a natural, cultural, social and financial entity. Each form of governmental subsidy for childcare must be constructed so that each family’s individual rights toward authorities, experts and organisations are strengthened. Some kind of family taxation or a tax reflecting parents’ support obligations would pay respect to the family’s beneficial input in society. This would further strengthen each family’s possibility to choose their own way of life.
Freedom of choice means that a vast variety of childcare alternatives is allowed and encouraged. However, no commercial or public childcare form should be more favoured than care offered by the parents in their own home. All economic and political pressure to enforce uniformity of different families’ way of life must stop. Parents must be allowed to freely choose the kind of care which they find suitable for their children. This must be done on equal economic, social and cultural grounds. (Compare article no. 31 of the UN-convention on the Child’s Rights.)
True freedom of choice is especially important for women’s possibilities in society. Women must be given full confidence to choose their own way of life, particularly during the years with small children.
Equality
The aspect of equality should be seen out of two perspectives:
1. Gender equality: The parent who is the main caregiver of the children may not be less favoured than the co-parent in any way. This is true whether they are living together or separated. In the name of equality it should go without saying that parents share all forms of savings, insurances, retirement funds etc. that they have instigated together.
Equality between the sexes should mean that all have equal opportunity to take part in familial, professional and societal arrangements. These goals should not and need not equality collide with the right to personally care for ones own children. Everything need not happen simultaneously. Every important task in a person’s life must be allowed sufficient space without interfering with other necessary engagements.
To give one’s children care during a comparatively short period of life must be considered a legitimate choice. This choice must be on the same level as pursuits during other phases of life such as childhood, education, military service, career, old age or illness.
Men should of course be encouraged to make considerably greater input in family life. With our present system though neither men nor women may, without great sacrifice, be other than leisure parents after the child’s first year. Children should never be regarded as the cause of loss of income or obstacles to professional working lives.
2. Equality between women: The interests of a woman working full-time should not be the sole focus and norm of society. When decisions are made regarding women (and children), the interests, needs and input of the parent at home must be regarded. Society does not give the parent at home (most often a woman) the respect and support which she needs to maintain her professional life with regard to pension schemes, sick pay and merits. To take care of your children full time is a task which demands many of the same qualifications which are valued in professional life. Among these are organisational skills, planning, conflict solving, patience and endurance. It should therefore be regarded as a merit to have dedicated an extended period of one’s life - full time - to this task. If the full-time parent then chooses to return to the workforce this should ease the return to working life.
It is Haro’s opinon that a person who cares for his/her own child carries out an important task and therefore should be entitled normal social security. In an equal society differences are respected and it is realised that know-how and skills may take different expressions.
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The Swedish family situation
In many countries, Sweden is seen as the ultimate liberal paradise, giving freedom and support to its citizens. In some ways this is true, in other it is not.
Sweden has a high living standard, very low levels of child poverty, a sophisticated social security system, an ambitious gender equality policy and one of the highest life expectancies in the world.
But there are cracks in the surface, exposing another reality. The psychological health of our youth is deteriorating faster than in eleven other comparable European countries. Swedish women have the highest rate of sick leave in Europe. Even normal, socially well functioning Swedish parents are having difficulties raising their young, according to a study. School statistics show that young people are learning less in school than 20 years ago.
Psychological and sociological knowledge suggests that these problems stem from conditions in the family. How then is the situation for Swedish families?
Compared to other countries, Sweden provides good services for the full-time-dual-earner households. Maternity leave is 16 months with 13 months at 80% of ther parents´previous salary, up to a certain level. One of the 13 months is reserved for the father. Day care is almost “free”. No one pays more than a total of €150 a month, regardless of the number of children. Many pay less.
IN school, the organised activities before and after school are free, making full-time work easy for both parents. The quality of day care is high by international standards, albeit not as high as 20 years ago. Small children can sometimes be cared for in groups of up to 17 children. The national average children-to-staff ratio is a little over 5 to 1 but in some municipalities, average ratios of 6- or even 7 to1 exist.
Eighty-five per cent of all children, 1-5 years of age, go to day care in Sweden. The number of one-year-olds in day care is steadily increasing.
What do those parents do that want to bring their children up a different way, perhaps based in the home?
For over 30 years, this has been very difficult. Swedish taxation policies, with among the highest tax levels in the world, make being a single-earner family more difficult in Sweden than in perhaps any other Western country.
Since 1971, when the tax laws for families where changed, their has been no financial recognition of home-parenting whatsoever, with the exception of a small home-care allowance for six months in 1994. The home parent today is almost extinct.
The Haro association has worked for over 25 years to correct this situation and has won a small but important victory. The current centre-right government has allowed for the possibility of an allowance of €300 a month for parents not choosing day care before the age of three. But it is up to each municipality to implement the scheme or not. Municipalities run by the Social Democratic Party rarely adopt it.
Several studies show that the Swedish people very much would like a financial possibility to be at home with their children up to the age of four. This is especially true among working class parents. Still, the political opposition, even to this small allowance, is strong. Only one political party out of seven in Parliament, the Christian Democrats, supports it without reservations. The arguments against the allowance is that children need day care to develop, that the state needs to check how children are doing, that gender equality would be adversly affected and that immigrants would not integrate properly into the Swedish society.
Available evidence, however, makes it more likely that the current day-care-only policy is a more likely creator of these problems. International research consistently shows a small increase in behavioral problems among children with high exposure to day care before 3–4 years of age. Swedish research shows that parents abilities has deteriorated as current day-care-only policy has expanded. Day care for immigrant children has not made it easier for them to integrate; on the contrary, Sweden is having a very challenging situation with integration. The mechanism here could be that attachment to parents and their culture is broken too soon for children in immigrant families. The gender equality issue could easily be addressed by acknowledging the considerable learning value of caring for children at home, which is considerable.
In summary, Sweden has driven the state-as-carer paradigm further than any other country, and its deficiencies are becoming clearer every day. If there is something to be learned from the Swedish example, it is that healthy parents are not replaceable as carers without detrimental effects. Other countries should try to solve their family issues by enabling parents to take care of their children by themselves at home until their juniors reach school-going age, should parents so want.
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Report from Commission on the Status of Women, New York 2008
The Swedish organisation Haro, represented by Jannice Jansson and Madeleine Wallin, participated on behalf of FEFAF at the annual meeting in New York 2008.
We had a week full of seminars and meetings and we were invited to speak on two of them.
The general secretary of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon and the president of ECOSOC, H.E. Ambassador Munir Akram spoke at the opening of the meeting and Ban Ki-Moon ended his speech by telling us about the start of a project meant to reduce the violence against women.
The Swedish Minister of gender equality, Nyamko Sabuni, held a speech on the first day about the present work being done in Sweden concerning gender equality. She mentioned the project “Men’s violence against women”, in which Haro took a small part presenting answers to the government.
She talked about women’s health and that the gender equality has to be part in every sector of society.
The same day we met Nyamko Sabuni in the UN building and we asked her when Sweden will do the satellite calculations on the unremunerated work promised when signing Platform for Action. She didn’t know and she thought it would be a difficult task to implement.
She also brought up the English newspaper Daily Mail in which Therese Murphy, our former President and Jonas Himmelstrand, member of the board of Haro, were interviewed. She wanted us to talk more gently about the Swedish way of living and that we exaggerated about how it really is
We were invited to speak at a seminar arranged by Federation of University women and Worldwide organisation for women,“How to measure the value of unpaid caregiving work” and it was about gender financing.
Conchita Poncini, a former delegate from the UN and president of CSW in Geneva, David Fernandez Puyana from Spain, Carl Brinton from Brigham Young University, USA and Jannice Jansson FEFAF (Haro) spoke at the seminar.
Carl Brinton has been working in a project headed by Federation of University Women and He spoke about different measuring methods made around the world. The best study made according to his opinion is the one made in Great Britain.
FEFAF, Social Agenda (US NGO), Cúram (Irish FEFAF-member) and Haro (Swedish FEFAF-member) arranged a workshop,
“Caregiving, Finance and Empowerment”and Àine Uí Ghiollagáin, President of FEFAF and Vice President of Cúram, Theresa Funiciello (Social Agenda) and Madeleine Wallin (Haro) spoke.
Àine, Theresa and Diane Pagen had prepared a letter, possible for everybody to send to their governments.
EWL (European Womes Lobby) arranged a seminar about how to finance gender budgeting.
Together with Àine we attended the seminar and they presented that calculations will be made about the unpaid work being done by women.
Marion Brügge from Germany, a represent in the panel, explained detailed that gender financing concerned women from all groups in society and that everybody has to be included in the work for reaching gender equality.
Àine suggested that FEFAF could be assisting in helping EWL in this work.
Some of the seminars in which we participated were,
A seminar arranged by Soroptimists int., Rotary and Zonta int. They spoke about microloans to women aiming to start a business, which seems to be an efficient tool in empowering women in developing countries.
A seminar about conflict management.
A work-shop about methods in getting contributions.
A seminar held by Ministers from the Nordic countries about “Action against men’s violence against women”.
A seminar held by Mothers Union Africa.
The theme for the CSW next year is “The equal sharing of responsibilities between women and men, including caregiving in the context of HIV/AIDS”.
Madeleine Wallin 2008
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Annual Report of Haros Activities April 2008 - March 2009
The national board has had the following members during the time period:
Chairman: Madeleine Wallin, Hyssna
Vice Chairman: Jannice Jansson, Mölndal
Cashier: Sören Öhlin, Fritsla
Members: Jonas Himmelstrand, Storvreta
Therese Murphy
Mattias Renman, Kungsbacka
Marita Sandberg, Färjestaden
Alternate Members: Ingvild Segersam, Uppsala
Viktoria Klint, Dalhem
Accountants: Gunilla Olofsson, Örebro
Rune Thor, Bjärred
Alternate Accountant: Anders Sandsborg, Blomstermåla
Nominating
Committee: Linda Karlsson, Fritsla
Ingegerd Apelryd, Ljungskile
Malin Larsson, Rolfstorp
Directory Accountant: Mattias Renman, Kungsbacka
Number of members: 798 ( 605 women 193 men )
2008
April
April 14th Madeleine Wallin and Jannice Jansson were interviewed in Hallands Nyheter, a daily newspaper, at the Annual meeting of Haro.
May
An article was published in the daily newspaper Borås Tidning about Madeleine Wallin as a new chairman of Haro.
An article about Jonas Himmelstrand and Ingvild Segersam from Haro was published in Världen Idag.
Therese Murphy was on TV4 talking about the introduction of the new Swedish “Vårdnadsbidraget”, a small childcare benefit for families who choose to stay at home with children up to age 3, instead of sending them to daycare centres.
Jannice Jansson was interviewed on Gothenburg University Radio.
Anna Levin, a member of Haro, was on a local TV newscast, Sydnytt.
A board meeting was held in Fritsla.
Jonas Himmelstrand participated in the Swedish Government Council for Gender Equality.
June
Jonas Himmelstrand and Therese Murphy participated at the 9:th Nordic Conference of Public Health.
They had lunch with Sven Bremberg, responsible for the health of children and youth in the National Institution of Public Health.
They talked to the Minister of Public Health, Maria Larsson, about our upcoming seminar in June 2009. They had a short conversation with Sir Michael Marmot.
July
During the first week in July Haro participated in Almedalen, the largest national forum for politicians from all political parties, the media and all kinds of civil organisations.
We organised a seminar about the psychological unhealth of children with Jonas Himmelstrand, from the Board of Haro and Louise Hallin, a well-known psychotherapist and midwife, also known from answering questions about children and family on radio and TV.
August
The Board of Haro had a meeting in Visby, Gotland. A new registration of members was launched.
September
We sent an application for the Activity Allowance for Women Organisations the first of September.
A helpline for parents started.
We sent a press release about a comment made by the Minister of Finances concerning obligatory preschool.
Världen Idag, a Christian newspaper published an interview with Madeleine Wallin about the same subject.
Jonas Himmelstrand and Viktoria Klint wrote an article about gender equality which was published in SvD, (one of the largest morning papers in Sweden).
The Government’s Council for Gender Equality had their meeting, as a member, Madeleine Wallin attended.
October
An application for the Organisation Allowance for Women Organisations was sent the first of October.
The Board of Haro had a meeting in Uppsala.
Madeleine Wallin participated at a seminar in the European Parliament arranged by FEFAF.
Madeleine Wallin and Janice Jansson participated at the General Assembly of FEFAF in Brussels.
November
Madeleine Wallin and Magdalena Götborg, a member of Haro, participated at a TV debate concerning a suggestion about new regulations for children at preschool.
There was an article about Magdalena Götborg (member) in Markbladet and Madeleine Wallin was interviewed in the same paper.
Jonas Himmelstrand’s article “Preschool and Research” constituted the basis for a question raised in the Swedish Parliament concerning research about preschool, written by Maria Kornevik Jakobsson from Centerpartiet.
The topic was discussed in Parliament by Lars LeijonborgFp, (the Liberals), Maria Kornevik Jakobsson (the Centre Party) and Mikael Damberg, (Social Democrats).
December
Jonas Himmelstrand participated at a seminar held by Timbro, “The future preschool – how do we want it to be?”.
Jonas Himmelstrand participated, holding a speech at the Parliament’s seminar “Secure Children - Secure Parents - the Role of the Family in the 21:st Century”.
The Haro magazine “haro!” was published.
2009
January
The Board had a meeting in Gothenburg.
Haro started a scholarship concerning our issues.
February
Marita Sandberg debated with Nalin Pekgul, chairman of the Women’s group in the Social Democratic Party on the radio.
Haro sent 1200 invitations to the seminar “Better Future Psychological Health – for the Children and Youth of Today”.
The Board had a meeting in Stockholm.
Jonas Himmelstrand and Ingvild Segersam had a meeting with representatives from the youth associations of the Christian Democrats and The Centre Party.
An article about Haro was published in a paper of a Swedish political party, SD-kuriren.
March
Majvor Sintorn and Madeleine Wallin attended CSW’s conference in New York, representing FEFAF.
We arranged a workshop together with Áine.
Jannice Jansson, Sören Öhlin, Therese Murphy and her husband participated in “Debatt”, a debate programme on TV, talking about, “Has gender equality gone too far?”
Jonas Himmelstrand had an article published in SvD.
The Haro magazine “haro!” was published.
The Government’s Council for Gender Equality had their meeting, and a member from Haro attended.
The Board of Haro had a meeting in Borås.
Haro participated at a meeting arranged by The Swedish Youth Board, concerning the contributions paid to women organisations.
Haro participated at a seminar for parental support in Gothenburg.
April
A board meeting was held in Uppsala.
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