Mothers under siege
Georgia Straight
June 7, 2007

Some say the B.C. government has violated the human rights of single moms with its punitive social policies.

... 26-year-old single mom has been on a waiting list for more than a year for daycare for her three-year-old son, Terence. This September, she will also need after-school care for her five-year-old daughter, ... who will be starting Grade 1. She won't find out until August if ... has been accepted.... Each day, she leaves her subsidized Native housing project in East Vancouver and takes the bus to work on the city's West Side. The closest child-care centre is several blocks from her home. It makes her wish she could have attended a recent demonstration for daycare in Vancouver.

"I would love to have been at that protest, saying, 'Yeah, we need daycare,'" she said with a smile. "But I had to be at work. I can't afford to take a day off."

If there's nobody to care for her kids, Prince might have no alternative but to go on welfare. As a single parent "expected to work" with two children, she would receive $1,036 per month in social assistance.

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