While the government is sitting in Belgrade, talking about the incredible economic "successes" of the country, preparing for Expo 2027 and spending millions and millions of evars, it is estimated that around 800.000 citizens of Serbia live in absolute poverty. Most of them without the right to cash social assistance, which is insufficient for mere survival anyway. Because if the President of the National Assembly, Ana Brnabić, says that she can survive for several days with 40.000 dinars, what should a three-person household do with about 21.000 dinars for a month? And that, if they are "lucky" to renew the request and get the right to cash social assistance
The news is that cash social assistance has been increased by 229 dinars. So, for one family member, it is now 11.674 dinars, the other member receives 5.837 dinars, and a child under 18 years of age - 3.502 dinars. These are the data according to the latest inflation adjustment from April 2024. Therefore, the monthly amount for a family of three is 21.013 dinars.
That amount is not even enough for half of the minimum consumer basket - it amounted to RSD 53.040,56 in February. However, if someone tries to earn extra money - because a family of three cannot survive on 20.000 dinars - it may happen that that user loses the right to cash social assistance.
"These are mostly jobs in the sphere of the informal economy," Marko Vasiljević, coordinator for advocacy of Initiative A 11, told "Vreme". "So, these are not permanent jobs that people can count on and generate regular income from."
Vasiljević here mentions the collection and sale of secondary raw materials - their sale to recycling companies is recorded as a kind of income.
"What often happens in practice is that one person hands over secondary raw materials for the entire settlement. And then when you look at the purchase price, it's clear that that individual couldn't collect them all in a month and that he worked 24 hours a day," emphasizes Vasiljević.
photo: marija janković...
According to the information available to the A 11 initiative, one of the collectors who handed over secondary raw materials to a company for recycling on behalf of the settlement, earned income of 10.220 dinars, then 38.340 dinars, and once 61.240 dinars. This is what the social card shows. However, the price of cardboard per kilogram is 3 dinars, and in order to earn 61.240 dinars, it is necessary to collect and sell 21,4 tons of cardboard per month - that is, to collect and sell 713 kilograms of paper per day. It is simply not physically possible for an individual to collect these amounts by himself.
How and why are people excluded from cash social assistance? What was brought about by the Law on the Social Card and how many people currently use cash social assistance, and how many live in absolute poverty? Finally, what is happening with social workers and is the government even a little interested in social policy?
SOME OF THE SITUATIONS BECAUSE OF WHICH THE USER DOES NOT RECEIVE CASH SOCIAL ASSISTANCE
One of the frequent situations cited by graduate social worker Vladan Jovanović for "Vreme" is the example of a two-member elderly household that lives in the countryside or in a suburban settlement, has a hectare and a half of land in a rural area that is either not for cultivation or they are unable to work, so they - although threatened - cannot receive compensation from the state on any basis.
"Often they still have inadequate housing, inaccessibility to the resources of the local community, which means that they are far from a health center, a center for social work, or the first store," says Jovanović. "And the very fact that they have some land from which they cannot earn anything makes it an obstacle for them to achieve a certain parvo."
He adds that one of the items that is problematic in the Law on Social Protection is the limit of 50 ares for the able-bodied population, and more than one hectare for those unable to work.
"In rural households, even if they have machines for cultivating the land, they are usually people who are unable to work," Jovanović points out.
Marko Vasiljević cites the example of their beneficiary whose daughter passed away and she had no money for the funeral. That's why they, as Initiative A 11, gave her solidarity aid even though they don't deal with any kind of humanitarian aid.
"Because of that and some other donations, her social assistance was canceled because the social card registered it as income from employment," explains Vasiljević.
Another problem related to financial social assistance, says Vasiljević, is that if a household that uses financial social assistance has members who are able to work, in that case the household receives financial social assistance only for nine months of the year. Namely, the legislator assumed that those who are beneficiaries of cash social assistance can do some additional seasonal work in those three months, even though no one offers those people any kind of work.
Vasiljević says that it often happens that people stay without income for much longer because after the three months they have to submit a new request. And the approval, that is, the process of revising that right often takes a long time, so people are without any income for several months.
"These arrears are subsequently paid to them because the right is calculated from the moment you submit the request. However, until your request is resolved, you have to live on something, and then it happens that in that vacuum, people have no other income", emphasized Vasiljević.
SUE YOUR CLOSEEST ONE, SO YOU WILL GET HELP
This interlocutor highlights another situation that "dissuades" people from using cash social assistance. It is about the fact that if there are members in the household who are not able to work, and there are family members who are, then they have the obligation to support them.
"Let's take, for example, a family with minor children who wants to exercise the right to financial social assistance, and the parents are unemployed, the children are minors and are not able to work. Those children, through their parents who are their legal representatives, have to sue their grandparents because they are obliged by law to support them. For the largest number of people, this represents a huge ethical problem, and they give up their right to cash social assistance", says Vasiljević.
He further explains that these are often claims for 500 or 1000 dinars. And if the relatives who have an obligation to support are also beneficiaries of cash social assistance, then there is no need to file that lawsuit because it can be checked through the Center for Social Work. But if they have some other income or no income other than living, for example, from agriculture and minimum pensions, a lawsuit must be filed. And in order to file a lawsuit, free legal aid is necessary and, according to our interlocutor, this is one of the most common types of free legal aid provided by services located in local self-government units.
"Most often, people give up on any request at all because they don't want to sue their children or parents. But if the court rules that the children are obliged to support their parents with 1000 dinars per month, the Center for Social Work will reduce their financial aid by that amount. In this way, it actually saves on those who are the most vulnerable and threatened in our society", emphasized Vasiljević.
FROM IDEA TO REALIZATION
Unicef prepared a projection of poverty in Serbia for the year 2023 - the data show that 12,1 percent of the citizens of Serbia - 800.000 people - are in absolute poverty.
"The last information I have is that we currently have around 167.000 beneficiaries of cash social assistance and that since the introduction of the social card, the idea of which was to facilitate the fair distribution of cash social assistance, 44.000 people have been left without it," emphasizes Vasiljević.
He adds that it is a paradoxical situation that today we have 44.000 fewer beneficiaries since the introduction of the Law on the Social Card, and that absolute poverty in Serbia has not actually decreased.
"The latest data are from 2020 because we stopped measuring absolute poverty. They were published by the Team for Social Inclusion and Poverty Reduction, which has since been abolished. It was a government body that provided advisory support to the government in formulating policies aimed at reducing poverty and social exclusion. The government assessed that it no longer needed it and that body was abolished in 2021", explains M. Vasiljević. He also states that according to the data published by the Team for Social Inclusion and Poverty Reduction in 2021, there were 2020 people living in absolute poverty in Serbia in 450.000.
"At that moment, we had about 210.000 beneficiaries of cash social assistance, today we have about 44.000 fewer," concludes Vasiljević.
The establishment and management of the single Social Card register was aimed at the existence of a single and centralized record that contains accurate and updated data on the social and economic status of an individual... It was also specifically introduced for the purpose of more efficient exercise of social protection rights and services, fairer distribution of social assistance, etc. Article 3 of the Social Card Act).
Jovanović states that he would like someone to come out with the results since the social card program has been implemented for more than a year.
"What is the result of that? What is the number of families and individuals who received social assistance today, and what was the number before the adoption of the law and the software? How fast is the procedure? Because if the problem is recognized, then someone will say, 'Let's solve it,'" Jovanović wonders.
On its Instagram account, Initiative A 11 stated: "Why should the Social Card Act be repealed urgently? Because he introduced semi-automatic decision-making on social benefits, which is often based on errors in the system".
THERE IS NO ADEQUATE SYSTEM
Jovanović points out that we do not have a system that should enable the user to receive social assistance more easily and to recognize a family that is in a state of social need, and to provide them with adequate help, not only in money, but also during institutional accommodation, as well as non-institutional protection.
"As professional workers, the scope of our work is increasing, we have more and more responsibility, procedures are becoming more complicated, and our capacity to intervene is decreasing. A social worker who did that work in the 1980s, was on the field, knew how each family breathes and recognized the moment when it is necessary to intervene, cannot be compared to us today", emphasizes Jovanović.
He adds that it is necessary to provide enough quality professional workers who will more easily recognize cases in which intervention is needed.
"We have few social workers in a bad position, and we want to raise the level of service quality," concludes Jovanović.
He goes on to say that both in society and in the profession there is a problem in achieving the goals set by law and strategic acts.
"Neither the amounts provided for financial social assistance provide a minimum level of social security for the individual and the family, nor are the services we provide sufficiently affordable. We have a problem with the 'bureaucratization of the social protection system', and the reforms are going more and more obviously in that direction", emphasizes Jovanović.
THE AUTHORITIES ARE NOT INTERESTED IN DEALING WITH THESE ISSUES
"We haven't had a strategy for poverty reduction for 14 years," says Vasiljević. "That is already an indication of something. We know that those strategic documents are no guarantee that things will improve in a certain area. We have a lot of adopted strategic documents, but they are not actually implemented. However, it is important that they exist. These strategies often do not contain assessments of the current situation on the basis of which measures and policies can be created to deal with social problems."
He adds that as a society we do not have a consensus on the fact that we should support those who are the most vulnerable and how they can get out of that position of extreme poverty and social exclusion.
"With this kind of support and this kind of social assistance, it's hard for anyone to get out of that vicious cycle of poverty." This is especially specific for certain social groups that, due to systemic and institutional discrimination, actually remain in extreme poverty for generations. I mean Roma men and women," says Vasiljević.
He further explains that it is not a matter of any culture, nor of people's choice to live in extreme poverty, but it is an obvious indicator of structural obstacles and the consequences of the existence of mechanisms that exclude these people. That is, systemic institutional discrimination.
Finally, Vasiljević concludes that this is a consequence of the dominant neoliberal narrative - namely that we as individuals are responsible for ourselves and that we cannot count on any kind of social support and that, if we find ourselves in poverty or homelessness, it is about our personal responsibility. That is - we didn't work enough, we didn't try hard enough, we made bad life choices and it's our own fault. Then it also follows that we have to fight our way out of that situation on our own.
And while the government is talking in Belgrade, talking about the incredible economic "successes" of the country, preparing for Expo 2027 and spending millions and millions of evars, it is estimated that around 800.000 citizens of Serbia live in absolute poverty. Most of them without the right to cash social assistance, which is insufficient for mere survival anyway. Because if the President of the National Assembly, Ana Brnabić, says that she can survive with 40.000 dinars for only a few days, what should a three-member household do with about 21.000 dinars for a month? And that, if they are "lucky" to renew the request and get the right to cash social assistance.
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