Cáritas Diocesana served around 14,774 households in the Canary Islands during 2021, that is, more than 53,000 people, which represents an increase of 17.32% compared to 2020, a year in which the entity had already experienced a growth of 83% compared to 2019.
"The return to normality and economic recovery has not favored the most impoverished people in the Canary Islands. The gap has widened after the end of the pandemic," said the general secretary of Cáritas Diocesana de Canarias, Caya Suárez, at a press conference.
For his part, the director of Cáritas Diocesana de Canarias, Gonzalo Marrero, lamented that the situation of poverty experienced by thousands of Canarians has worsened and become a "structural reality".
"The return to normality and economic recovery has not favored the most impoverished people," Marrero denounced. "The macroeconomic data speaks of growth, but we must ask ourselves where that growth is going, which since 2019 we have seen according to many data, that what happens is that it is distributed exclusively among the great fortunes."
More "working poor" and with more health problems
Thus, Cáritas has also warned of the growth of the figure of the "working poor" who have to turn to their organization to cover their basic needs, although it has detailed that 72.6% of the people who come to this entity are unemployed, 57.4% do not receive any type of income and 40.6% have minors in their care. Likewise, 81% of the people welcomed by Cáritas do not own their own home and more than 30% are affected by situations of insecure or inadequate housing.
In this sense, he lamented that there are "working poor" who dedicate their time to work, "sometimes up to more than 40 hours a week", and who still cannot meet all the needs of their family. "Before, when you found a job, you automatically came out of poverty, but in the current situation what we are seeing is a progressive growth of the working poor," lamented the director of Cáritas in the Canary Islands.
On the other hand, the NGO has warned of the effects that severe poverty has on the people it serves, after detecting that many of them had abandoned medical treatments due to the difficulties in taking care of them. In this way, the organization grants aid for this purpose to 13% of the people it assists, while 28% have required it to face the payment of rent and accommodation.
In addition, Caya Suárez pointed out that the NGO has detected an "important increase" in mental health problems after the pandemic, as well as a greater physical deterioration among homeless people.
Poverty "has the face of a woman"
On the other hand, Cáritas has insisted that poverty "has the face of a woman", since 63% of the people who come in search of help are women between 40 and 59 years old and, of which, eight out of ten are single women with minors in their care.
In addition, in the context of prostitution, Cáritas has observed an increase of 114% in the number of women victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation that they serve through their Lugo project, although they indicate that the increase in the figure may be due, mainly, to the improvement in their detection tools.
Regarding the migratory issue, the organization served 3,432 migrants with accompaniment in the reception services, 157% more than in 2020, of which 1,800 were homeless people, out of the total of 4,309 homeless people served by Cáritas Diocesana de Canarias last year.
For his part, the bishop of the diocese of the Canary Islands, José Mazuelos, said that the data they have presented should be "a wake-up call" that raises awareness about the data. "We are returning to normality, but the people in need are not," said Mazuelos, who also asked to address the digital divide, the gaps when processing benefits such as the Minimum Basic Income.
