2023-07-12 20:19:00
“Overseas parenting support cannot be the poor relation of family policies. This is the whole subject of a senatorial report unveiled on Tuesday for better support for parenthood in the overseas territories.
The elected officials, Annick Billon and Elsa Schalck, rapporteurs for the delegation for women’s rights, Stéphane Artano and Victoire Jasmin, rapporteurs for the overseas delegation, recommend carrying out prevention with middle and high school students, reconsidering the place fathers in family policies and better support young families.
“We must reconsider the place of fathers in family policies” by associating them more “with parenting support systems”, because the “economic survival strategy linked to the payment of family benefits” can have “financial and educational,” said one of the rapporteurs, Elsa Schalck, Senator LR from Bas-Rhin, during a press conference.
Twenty recommendations
“It is urgent to act for all families overseas. The report makes 20 recommendations around four axes,” the senators say. They want to raise awareness of the issues and responsibilities of parenthood, help and support precarious and vulnerable families, strengthen local services for all and support associations and better coordinate actions.
The overseas territories are distinguished by a high prevalence of single parenthood (59% in Martinique, 52% in Guadeloupe, 46% in Guyana and 38% in Reunion compared to 25% in France). It does not generally follow a separation but begins at birth and continues for most of childhood, according to this report from the work of the Senate Overseas Delegation and the Women’s Rights Delegation.
The share of births not recognized by the father is also significant: 68% in Guyana, 63% in Guadeloupe, and 54% in Martinique against 10% in France.
Better adapt for better responsiveness
Fighting against early and/or unwanted pregnancies is also an “education and prevention issue” which requires the provision of “compulsory emotional and sexual life education sessions in all overseas colleges and high schools” , supports the report. In addition, the senators insist on the importance of “supporting parents as early as possible, in all the moments of their life as parents, including the most difficult”, and for this “strengthen local local actors and better coordinate actions.
The five main parenting support systems (listening and support networks for parents, child-parent reception centers, local support contracts for schooling, family mediation, meeting spaces) and the “1,000 first days” are unevenly deployed in the overseas territories, noted the senators who recommend accelerating their deployment by adapting it.
They also recommend to “densify child-parent reception centers and parents’ schools, in particular in Guyana, Mayotte and Saint-Martin where urgent catch-up plans are necessary” and to “develop legal measures to educational assistance and assistance in the management of the family budget”.
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