"Suitable" for the coming International Women's Day: Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro calls on all women to have six children "for the good of the country".
A third of Venezuela's population is starving, according to a study by the UN, hospitals have to live without electricity and a lack of medicine and a million children have been left behind by their families who have been forced to flee abroad. The country in South America is currently in a massive political and economic crisis. President Nicolás Maduro now has the optimal solution: even more children!
"Bears Children!" he said while promoting a "plan" for women's health on Tuesday. "Every woman should have six children! Each! For the good of the country!" He also added that it was "Women's Week", a reference to International Women's Day on March 8th.
How unspeakably fitting. After all, this day is only about the rights of women, which should actually include the right to one's own body. And in Venezuela, thanks to the crisis, it is almost impossible to get contraception, coupled with strict abortion laws. Which has resulted in more and more babies being abandoned. A charity estimates that the number of children left on the streets or at the entrances to public buildings increased by 70 percent in 2018 alone.
"Hospitals do not work, vaccines are scarce, women cannot breast-feed because they are malnourished or cannot buy baby food because it is unaffordable, and the country is facing forced migration due to the humanitarian emergency," tweeted opposition politician Manuela Bolivar on Maduro's proposal.
So you have to be very cynical to pretend to your female population, of all things, in this precarious emergency situation that they will have six children …
Maduro has been President of Venezuela since 2013. Because of his repeated attempts to overthrow the elected parliament, he is increasingly referred to as a dictator. Between 2013 and 2018, 13% of Venezuelan children were malnourished, according to Unicef. Opposition leader Juan Guaidó is now regarded by 54 countries as the actual president of Venezuela. But Maduro has the support of the Venezuelan military and is therefore still in power.
