Inter-American Parliamentary Group on Population and Development

The Eurolat Assembly ended today with the approval of three resolutions, including one on poverty and social exclusion. The adopted text calls on governments to move forward with the development of social-protection systems with universal coverage and underlines the need to guarantee access to education and quality health care.

The resolution draws attention to the importance of indigenous people in the history and development of Latin American countries and points to the value of conditional transfer systems such as the Latin-American strategy for combating the transmission of poverty and inequality from one generation to the next, which seeks to act on the causes of poverty.

Parliamentarians from both sides of the Atlantic found that legal minimum wages are an essential mechanism of income-redistribution policy and contribute to the fight against wage and income inequalities. They also noted that in the European Union the proportion of the population living in poverty has decreased from 43% to 16% due to regional policy.

In the last two years the poverty level in Latin America and the Caribbean has been reduced to the same levels as in 1980. Currently, 36.5% of the region’s population is poor, which means that 194 million people are living with less than the minimum amount required to satisfy their essential needs.

Feminicides Condemned

The text of the resolution calls upon the governments of the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean to “firmly condemn violence against women and feminicide as an extreme expression of discrimination against women.” It also urges governments to increase the budget of the bodies responsible for investigating the murders, to establish effective systems for protecting witnesses, victims and their families, and to strengthen judicial bodies.

Sexual and Reproductive Rights

Additionally, it urges that public services guarantee universal access to sex education and family planning and respect for women’s sexual and reproductive rights, “including control over their own fertility.”The document emphasized that 70% of the 1.3 billion people living in poverty are women.

Agriculture

Given that agriculture remains the main source of income and employment for most of the very poorest people, particularly the indigenous populations of some Latin American countries, the parliamentarians stressed the need to prioritize food production and food security and to uphold the right of small and medium-sized farmers to produce at fair prices.

Contact:

Natalia Dasilva – Servicio de prensa del Parlamento Europeo Móvil peruano: (51-1) 995 718 863 Móvil belga: (32) 473 785 499 natalia.dasilva@europarl.europa.eu