Frente Amplio has proposed this Sunday that the “chosen family”, that is, friendships and nearby neighborhood, may access paid leave for care tasks in situations of illness, hospital admission, dependency, or raising minors.
The organization proposes introducing into the Families Law the principle of free designation of emotional bonds and care. This is what it has made known this Sunday in a video shared on social media by its candidate Ada Colau.
“How many times have you felt that your friend is your family? More and more, it happens that maybe, when you’re sick or in case of hospitalization, for caring for the children. More and more that, especially women, migrant people who don’t have their family network here or LGTBI people, but in general any person from the entire population, it happens to us that to take care of ourselves day to day we rely on a friend, we rely on a neighbor, so what we propose is that this reality be granted legal recognition,” Colau has explained.
The Frente Amplio candidate emphasizes that the proposal aims for the law to include “something so basic” as the right of each person to decide who will be in charge of their care. The group recalls that, currently, paid leave is limited to family by kinship in cases of illness, hospitalization, death, care for dependency, accompanying and raising sons and daughters.
However, Frente Amplio’s purpose is for the care needs of relatives and dependent people to be covered through sufficient paid leave and with greater labor protection for those who assume these tasks, without requiring the existence of ties of consanguinity or cohabitation.
The party clarifies that the legal recognition of these support and care networks would be voluntary and would not imply the automatic assignment of care duties to the designated people.