- The group Women's Strike has called a demonstration on November 28 for the statements.
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| Jaroslaw Kaczynski, at the funeral of his brother Lech. |
Poland's ruling party blames the low birth rate on women for drinking alcohol
Poland's ruling party leader Jarosław Kaczyński claimed on Saturday that excessive drinking by young women was to blame for the country's low birth rate.
"If we see a continuation of the situation where, up to the age of 25, young women drink as much as men their age, then there will be no children," Kaczyński said, as reported by The Guardian.
A group defending women's rights in Poland called on the population on Monday to demonstrate the political leader's statements. The opposition and female celebrities also denounced the 73-year-old man, whom they accused of being patriarchal and dismissed his comments as "nonsense".
Too much alcohol
The leader of the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party said he was not in favor of women having children at an early age because "a woman has to mature to become a mother." However, he added that if they consume until the age of 25 "it does not bode well" for the birth rate.
"A man, to become an alcoholic, has to drink heavily for an average of 20 years, while a woman only has to drink for two," Kaczynski explained. In addition, he said that this information came from a doctor who "managed to cure a third of his male alcoholic patients, but no women."
Criticism of your comments
Jarosław Kaczyński's comments were not well received by opposition parties and celebrities in the country. Left-wing politician Joanna Scheuring-Wielgus called the remarks "rubbish" and called the PiS leader an "old patriarchal". "Of course, we could laugh at this, make memes, but it is a serious and tragic matter," he said on Monday. "Poland under the PiS government is anti-family and anti-woman," he added.
For her part, Katarzyna Lubnauer, a lawmaker with the liberal Civic Coalition (KO), called the comments "nonsense that insults women."
Polish footballer Robert Lewandowski's wife, Anna, also chimed in on Instagram saying: "ENOUGH. It makes me angry when I see politicians unfairly accusing women instead of acknowledging the real problem."
A demonstration called
A group defending women's rights, Women's Strike, encouraged the population to demonstrate in front of the politician's residence on November 28, coinciding with the 104th anniversary of the date on which women obtained the right to vote in Poland.
"The silly words of an old man about Polish women, that women do not have children because they drink alcohol (and not because Poland is hell), is just a fragment of our reality," the group wrote on its Facebook page on Monday.
Women's Strike noted that there were many reasons for the low birth rate in the country, including abortion restrictions in Poland, lack of access to sex education and in vitro procedures, inflation, housing shortages, and lack of access to nurseries.
An economic problem
Critics argued that Polish women were hesitant to have children for economic reasons. Specifically, they pointed to the difficulty young people have in having a family in the midst of inflation close to 18%. The low birth rate is also encouraged by the fear of restrictions on abortion introduced by the PiS.
In Poland, abortion is allowed if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest if the woman's life is in danger, or in cases of serious or lethal fetal malformation. However, due to administrative issues, it is often difficult to access a safe abortion.
Official statistics put the current birth rate at just over 1.3 children per woman, a figure below both the EU average and the generational renewal threshold.
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