The Youth Strategy 2030 proposes to “promote public debate on lowering the voting age to 16” with the aim of encouraging youth participation in politics.
This was explained this Thursday by the general director of the Youth Institute (Injuve), Teresa Pérez, who appeared together with the Minister of Social Rights and the 2030 Agenda, Ione Belarra, in the presentation of said document.
Approved in the last Council of Ministers, the Strategy includes 12 thematic axes and two of a transversal nature: equality between men and women and the green agenda.
It is committed to the creation of a public rental housing stock aimed at young people, promoting their employment, ensuring quality health and education, increasing their access to higher education with more scholarships and grants, and favoring the permanence of those who They live in the rural world.
In her speech, Belarra gave “thanks” to the young people “for being feminists, for defending the rights of women and LGBTI people.”
“Thanks to his drive, this week we can celebrate a new abortion law, for which I want to congratulate my colleague Irene Montero and the entire Ministry of Equality,” he declared. “Not only are we going to guarantee that abortion can be performed safely and free of charge in the public health system,” she continued, “but we are going to recover this right for 16- and 17-year-old women.”
In addition, “we are committed to a sexual affective education that prevents unwanted pregnancies and promotes satisfactory and violence-free sexual-affective relationships.” In his opinion, “this is how sexist and hate speeches are stopped: advancing without fear in the expansion of rights.”
The minister also had words for those young people committed to environmental conservation, who “remind us that we do not have a spare planet and that the time to face the climate emergency is now”. “You have shown that when youth get organized, you can change everything,” she said.
In this sense, Belarra expressed his “great confidence in the young generations” despite the negative messages that from certain instances, “also from the pulpits”, are sometimes launched against.
He referred to mental health care, also contemplated in the Strategy, which proposes the incorporation of psychologists into the educational system, in a similar way to the labor counselor.
Teresa Pérez also highlighted the importance of the new abortion law, which includes the recognition of reproductive exploitation as a form of violence, comprehensive sexual education in all academic stages, and sick leave for menstrual health.
In this line, the Strategy proposes that said losses be respected also in the educational field, he indicated. “If you’re in a lot of pain, dizzy, nauseous or even fainting, you obviously can’t concentrate or pay attention in class, so you have to stay home instead of going to high school or college,” he said, and “that absence doesn’t may not entail any type of academic punishment or prejudice”.
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