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In 2020, Latin American women suffered a historical setback in financial and labor terms in the face of the global pandemic of covid-19.
In Brazil, the eighth most unequal country in the world, the impacts were profound: about 8.5 million women left the labor market in the third quarter and their participation fell to 45.8% according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), the lowest level in three decades.
Within this female universe, single mothers, who number more than 11.5 million in Brazil, not only faced more risks and financial difficulties due to the pandemic, but also suffered a mental overload and a greater accumulation of tasks with the closure. from schools and nurseries.
PHOTO GALLERY |
Being a single mother confined to Brazil
Natália Cardoso, 20, living in Osasco, a municipality on the outskirts of São Paulo, and Carlla Bianca Souza, 21, living in São Luís, Maranhão state, in the north of the country, are two examples of single mothers who they have not received any help from the government during the pandemic.
Cardoso had to leave her job after exhausting her maternity leave, as her working hours prevented her from dividing the care of her daughter with her mother, who lives next door.
The only job she was able to get after being fired was a temporary position in a candidate's campaign in the municipal elections in November 2020. Aside from having the help of her mother, who also supports another 16-year-old daughter, Cardoso received a food basket from a network of organic producers who during the pandemic have made biweekly donations to single mothers in Osasco.
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Souza, on the other hand, lives with her parents and, in addition to taking care of her three-year-old daughter, Ísis, she also helps take care of her two younger sisters while she completes her law school studies.
In addition, he runs an online clothing store.
“I had an anxiety crisis and depression, because you feel very pressured, very exhausted and you still have to do your things.
During the pandemic I felt very suffocated, ”she says.
In April last year, the federal government approved a minimum emergency income of 600 reais (90 euros) per month for self-employed workers and unemployed during the pandemic, being double that value in the case of single mothers, but thousands of women found that their requests were rejected.
Already in 2021, and after various alerts about the worsening of economic difficulties with the end of the emergency rent, the national congress approved a new wave of reduced payments that still depends on the publication of a provisional measure by the Executive branch to define rules, terms and values, which will be from 150 to 375 reais (22 to 55 euros) per month.
According to recent data from a report by the Gênero and Numero y Siempreviva Feminist Organization (SOF) groups, 50% of the Brazilian women began to take care of another person during the pandemic.
About 40% of those interviewed in the research affirmed that social isolation put their household sustenance at risk;
55% of those women were black, generally the most affected.
In Rio de Janeiro, one of the epicenters of the pandemic in Brazil, Sofía Benjamín, 30, a costume designer and freelance artist, lives with her daughter, Céu, who is four.
From one day to the next, the two found themselves completely locked in their apartment.
As a freelancer, their jobs were reduced and, to have the support of their mother, part of the risk group and their only support network, the two spent eight months without contact with the outside world.
In Brazil there are more than 11 million women who are single mothers and, although their realities are diverse, they are similar in some respects
“While adults pretend that nothing is happening and go on with life, how is the mental health of children and, consequently, of their caregivers during this pandemic?” Benjamin questioned in December, when thousands of Brazilians left social isolation to celebrate the end of the year parties.
The country already has more than 278,000 coronavirus victims and the numbers continue to rise every day.
Most public and private schools have already resumed face-to-face classes since the beginning of February, but many on a non-mandatory basis and with a rotation of face-to-face students every week.
In Brazil there are more than 11 million women who are single mothers and, although their realities are diverse and crossed by different regional and class issues, they are similar in some aspects.
In Salvador, Isis Abena, 35, and her daughter Ainá, three, also lived in a small apartment that seemed to shrink even more during the pandemic, affecting the emotional and mental state of the two during periods of confinement.
In the middle of their quarantine, they decided to move to a house within a village, where, together with other families who already lived there, they were able to
lie down.
In Brazil, a quilombo is a traditional Afro-descendant community where living together in a group and in contact with ancestry as an act of resistance.
"We continue, I and she (Ainá), in the construction and search for a community that welcomes us in this diaspora to minimize the consequences of colonialism and the fragmentation of black families," says Abena.
For her and her daughter, living with other families has been a process of transformation and healing.
Verônica da Costa, 31, also from Rio de Janeiro, where she lives with her six-year-old son Théo, is experiencing similar anguish.
“It is not poetic to keep a child alive alone in this city.
The network, which was already small, shrinks even more in this time of 'save himself who can'.
Cooking, tidying, washing, working, playing, breathing ... Little time to be myself ”, she complains, who is also self-employed and started working from home, making natural products such as soaps and plant-based self-care kits. medicinal.
During the pandemic, she formed a group with two other single mothers, also independent artists, to support each other and together to seek that time and space that, for them, became so scarce.
One year after the outbreak of the pandemic and the start of the quarantine, the situation in Brazil remains serious.
With the increase in the number of cases throughout the country and the slow advance of vaccination, cities and states have reversed the relaxation of confinements and reopening plans, closing again shops and services that had already opened to the public.
For the majority of mothers, especially those who are the only ones in charge of the home, the difficulties related to care and the overload of tasks persist, deepened by the crisis, without attention or solution.
“The truth is that while men do not feel the impacts of having children at home, [the well-being of mothers and children] will not be a priority for the government.
It is not that they are doing bad policies (...) it is that they are not doing it.
They don't think about it, ”Benjamin reflects.
All the stories documented in the Solo project, carried out with the support of the National Geographic Society's Covid-19 Emergency Fund, can be viewed on the
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