http://stiften.dk/skanderborg/39-aarig-kvinde-sultestrejker-i-hoerning
Today is the 7th day of 39-year old Irene’s hunger strike in front of the local authorities office. She is protesting against the fact, that people who suffer from chronic illness, complicated problems or handicaps, are not getting the allowance from the State, they are entitled to.
Taxes in Denmark belong to the worlds highest, because the Danish State has social systems that on paper secure the rights to an income in case of unemployment or illness. But the local authorities do not apply the law. They park all people, whether healthy or sick, on the cheapest kind of social assistance, called ‘kontanthjælp’, by declaring sick people healthy through diagnoses of non-medical personnel and by endless ‘try-out’ labour. This last is unpaid labour in businesses that do not pay a penny for it. Most of the time it is regular labour.
With a change in the law per the first of January this year, this is even more lucrative for local authorities, because from that date on, mutual economic dependency between two people who have a ‘marriage without paper’ has been declared. This is a delicate matter because international law regulates that nobody can be forced into economic dependency of another through marriage. Besides, mutual economic dependency should be mutual, meaning that it doesn’t apply for people who cannot provide for their family with labour because of illness. Therefore, the law has strict rules. Those rules are not being applied, so that virtually everybody who shares a home with another is considered to have a ‘marriage’. This last ‘interpretation’ of the law has been installed in the country through the media; most people do not even know that the fact they now have to provide for their partner – and partners children – is illegal.
So, Irene is striking for the truth. She is one of those people with chronic illness who can not get an ordinary job. She should have another allowance, independent of her partners income. That’s the law.
The Danish media are silent. On the second day of her hunger strike, Irene, who has no home and no income, got about 2000 Danish crowns from the local authorities, so she could buy some food and pay for a place to sleep. And they promised her talks. The media wrote ‘problem solved’ and that was it. No, the problem isn’t solved, and today Irene is still sitting there refusing to eat. A social jurist has offered her services to Irene for free, and will help with the talks coming this week.