Government forgets Early Childhood with cuts and lack of public policy

Is childhood a priority?

According to the Pact for Early Childhood, which brings together several organizations, the outlook for minors is not encouraging, as 54.3% of girls and boys under 6 years of age live in poverty, 12 out of every 100 children suffer from chronic malnutrition, which has a “brutal” effect on the physical and intellectual capacities of people in the future.

But there are other indicators, which are not encouraging either: four out of every 10 children have anemia and drink breast milk in their first hours of life, added to the fact that only three out of 10 have complete vaccination coverage.

Although Alonso Cuevas recognized that early childhood is a relatively new topic in the vocabulary of citizens, it had already been possible to establish programs aimed at this sector of the population, which have been dismantled in recent years and have not been replaced by others that solve the problems, therefore, there has been a deterioration in the indicators on the exercise of the rights of early childhood.

“It is a paradox that early childhood indicators on the exercise of their rights have deteriorated significantly, but investment has not increased and policies have not been built to try to reverse these trends,” said Alonso Cuevas.

Mexico is one of the countries that signed the 1989 International Convention on the Rights of Children, and in 2014 recognized minors as “subjects of law” in the General Law of Children’s Rights. In addition, at the beginning of the administration, article 3 of the Constitution was reformed so that initial education was compulsory, and the elimination of corporal punishment was recently approved.

In other words, the specialists see progress in the matter, but consider that there is still more to be done, given that early childhood is an important stage in the life of any person, since the foundations are laid for what will be in the future and how it will develop, hence the need to promote progress not only in the speech, but that is reflected in the budget.

The former first lady Margarita Zavala pointed out that the issue is new and that there has been a delay throughout the world, she recalled that in the presidential administration of her husband, Felipe Calderón, the term was just being introduced and attention began to be given, in addition that women began to professionalize in this area, but “you have to go faster” in favor of smaller citizens.

“The more visible you make the problem, the better. I believe that the fundamental part is in the State policy, it is not a matter of mothers or fathers or women, but of society as a whole and we have to look there, at the best interest of the child”, said the PAN deputy .

The importance of investing in early childhood is because it is the stage in which skills, learning and values ​​are developed for the future and that mark people for the rest of their lives, which is why specialists see in the early childhood a “potential for transformation”.

Antonio Rizzoli Cordobaa member of the Consultative Council of the National System for the Comprehensive Protection of Girls, Boys and Adolescents (SIPINNA), commented on a study in which she participated seven years ago with the program of childcare centers and now extinct with the current government, in which they saw that going to Initial Education in the first year of life, triples the probability of a normal development in language of the kids.

“Children who spent more than two years in the stays, compared to those who stayed less than six months, had better language development, because when you are with other people you have the need to communicate,” he said.