Child care

The children of families with an annual income of less than than 20,000 euros will be allowed to attend any of the capital's 72 municipal daycare centers free of charge.

According to the City of Athens, the decision will be implemented in the 2018-19 school year.

Municipal daycare centers and nurseries across Greece will have five years to comply with new regulations that were finalized last week.

There will be three transition periods for full compliance with the new regulations, starting with ensuring structural safety of all facilities within the next year, then compliance with mobile equipment over the next two years.

There has been a frightening rise in the number of women who have recently had to quit their jobs in order to carry out childcare or elderly care in Turkey. Reforms must urgently be made to address this trend. 

One million women in Turkey have quit their jobs over the five-year period from 2010-2015 as a result of the duties bound to childcare, in addition to 112,000 others who have quit their jobs to care for the elderly, according to a study by the Turkish Enterprise and Business Confederation (TÜRKONFED).

Parents with babies and toddlers have from June 10 until June 23 to apply for a spot at one of the daycare centers run by the OAED Manpower Organization.

In order to apply they should contact administrators at their nearest center, between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. from Monday through Friday.

Grandmothers who look after their grandchildren while the parents of the latter are at work were given their first salaries as part of a pilot project on April 14. 

In the framework of the project, a total of 5,735 grandmothers, who completed the required procedures, were paid their first installment, officials told Anadolu Agency. 

A woman dressed in black carrying with her a child's severed head was arrested near a Moscow metro station on Monday.

According to initial reports, the woman is 38-year-old Gyulychera Bobohulova from Uzbekistan, a nanny who for as yet unknown reasons murdered a four-year-old girl.

Family and Social Policies Minister Ay?enur ?slam said daycares for elderly and disabled people would be established in order to make lives easier for families who look after them. 

A 6-year-old girl found living in abhorrent conditions in an apartment in Larissa, central Greece, has been removed from her 32-year-old mother?s custody and was being treated for malnutrition at a local hospital, authorities said.

Police discovered the child alone last Saturday after neighbors reported that they had heard her crying.

By Lina Giannarou