That the Government of the Canary Islands has accepted part of Podemos' claim known as the 'pink tax', even if it is something symbolic, is undoubtedly a first step.
The 'pink tax' is a concept that has several aspects, although in general it refers to the added cost of certain products or services that are exclusively aimed at female consumption. Another discrimination, not the only one, against women, who also have to endure the wage gap and its consequences on salaries and pensions.
But... what exactly will come into effect in the Canary Islands from January 2018?
What we from Podemos have achieved so far is to eliminate the IGIC on basic feminine hygiene products, in this case tampons and sanitary pads. However, our list of demands is longer, and although of lesser consumption, we believe that silicone cups, as well as other ecological products for the same purpose, should also be included in the same batch and tax exemption.
We are in times of budgets, claims and negotiations, and while we celebrate every small advance, we are not going to fool ourselves with what barely amounts to 220,000 euros in the total budget, an insignificant figure.
However, it is a measure that we celebrate, for what, as I said before, it has of symbolic and, above all, because it helps us to make visible a whole discriminatory commercial strategy, which is what underlies in the background and that we will address soon in Parliament through an initiative.
The road to real equality is transversal and must be addressed from many fronts. The 'pink tax' is a small example, an essential step to move forward, but making budgets with a gender perspective is something much more ambitious. It is to ensure that there are enough nurseries, from 0 to 3 years old, public and free, so that no woman is expelled from the labor market for having to take care of her children.
Budgets with a gender perspective are not, for example, those that limit aid to tax reductions for nursery expenses, because these measures do not reach those who need it most. Let's not forget the data, 54% of single-parent families, most of them headed by women and with children in their care, are at risk of poverty or social exclusion, and their meager salaries, when they have them, do not even allow them to file an income tax return.
What tax deductions for nurseries are we talking about in the Canary Islands Budgets for 2018 for these women who have nothing to declare?
We still have a long way to go to reach the sufficient sensitivity that allows us to develop fair budgets, that do not exclude anyone and that reach those who need it most.
"Poverty has the face of a woman" is a blunt phrase that President Fernando Clavijo knows and has repeated to us on several occasions, but that is useless if we are not able to make budgets that help to change this harsh reality that affects women, their girls and boys, and the elderly who so often also have to take care of.
We already know, there are different parameters to measure poverty, even to be poor there are classes, and to receive aid you have to meet certain requirements. There are 'top-notch' poor people who fit the canons, and there are poor women, who are so poor, that they never meet the requirements to receive aid because they prefer to feed their children than to pay off some pending debt with the Public Treasury.
These are the evicted women, those who live with their children in occupied houses, those who wake up every day with the fear that their water or electricity supplies will be cut off, those who queue at the food bank, those who fight desperately for a job, for decent housing, those who live with the fear that any day they will come from Minors and take away their daughters, their sons.
They are the faceless women, because poverty has even taken away their faces.
María del Río, Secretary of Equality of Podemos Canarias and president of the Parliamentary Group
