BSW on families

The BSW wants the state to pay for reliable childcare during school holidays and all-day care, and to support municipalities in providing it. Parents should be able to choose between paid work and family work without financial or social pressure. The party also wants to strengthen women's economic independence.

Children have more days off than parents have vacation days. So the BSW wants more childcare during holidays and in the afternoon. The state should pay for it. It should also help towns and cities. Women should be able to earn their own money.

The program argues that school-free days clearly exceed parents' vacation days. The BSW sees balancing family and work as key to gender equality. It points to the East German experience, where working women and public childcare were the norm. According to the program, women today work part-time more often and do most unpaid care work. Equality is to be checked as a cross-cutting issue in all policy areas.

The BSW rejects the commercialization of motherhood and the wish for children. Fairs where surrogacy agencies advertise or prepare contracts are to be prohibited in the state. The party says this protects women from exploitation and children from trafficking.

The BSW is against business with surrogacy. In surrogacy, a woman carries a baby for other people. Fairs that advertise this should be banned in Saxony-Anhalt. This is meant to protect women and children.

The state is to prohibit such events using its powers in public order and consumer protection law and to enforce the ban. The state branch intends to recommend that the party's federal executive seek a comprehensive ban at the federal level. The program names protecting women from exploitation and children from trafficking as the goal.

The BSW wants to eventually abolish parental fees for daycare centers in Saxony-Anhalt and secure full-day care across the state. In the party's view, early childhood education must not depend on parents' income.

Parents should later pay nothing for daycare. There should be full-day care everywhere. The BSW says early education must not depend on parents' money.

The platform treats full-day childcare as part of social infrastructure and as a condition for parents being able to work. Because of falling birth rates, the BSW sees small daycare centers at risk of closing unless the state supports municipalities financially. Fee-free daycare is named as a goal for the future. State responsibility for childcare is to be developed further.

The BSW wants to fundamentally reform the state's Kinderförderungsgesetz (child care act), train more educators and improve staffing ratios. Pay and working conditions in daycare are to be upgraded to counter the staff shortage.

Daycare centers lack trained staff. The BSW wants to train more educators. Each educator should look after fewer children. Daycare work should be paid better.

The plan includes more training places for educators and more university places in childhood education. Trainees are to be paid fairly, and staff are to get reliable working hours and adequate pay. The party wants to use the drop in births to improve the ratio of staff to children. Educational concepts are to be developed with professional associations and reviewed regularly. Career paths and relief models are meant to make the job more attractive.

The BSW wants to establish permanent, independent ombuds offices for child and youth welfare across the state. They are meant to help children, young people and families early on in conflicts with youth welfare offices or service providers.

Some children and families have conflicts with the youth welfare office. The BSW wants independent contact points for them. There they get help and mediation. These offices should exist across the whole state.

The ombuds offices are to be easy to reach, strengthen young people's participation and mediate in conflicts before they escalate. They are to receive sufficient staff and funding and be linked with existing support systems. Findings from the consultations are to be used to improve procedures and protective measures in youth welfare. The program also names school social work, youth welfare and education about right and wrong as means of prevention.