Hundreds of people queued outside President Javier Milei’s new Human Capital Ministry on Monday to demand greater government assistance in the face of a food emergency.
The “line against hunger” formed outside of the portfolio’s headquarters in Buenos Aires in response to comments delivered by Human Capital Minister Sandra Pettovello last week that she would receive "one by one, the people who are hungry.”
The government official turned away leaders of social organisations and picket groups last Friday in an attempt to defuse a protest, but promised instead to attend to people who are hungry one by one to avoid intermediaries who deliver food aid.
"This is how I'm going to do it. Are you hungry? Come one by one and I'll write down your DNI [national ID card] number, your name, where you're from and you'll receive help individually,” said Pettovello in footage captured by news crews.
Gathering in response at the corner of Juncal and Carlos Pellegrini streets, near the Ministry’s headquarters, protesters on Monday formed a massive queue to challenge Pettovello to increase aid to soup kitchens and fund other forms of hunger relief.
Hundreds of people took part in the peaceful demonstration, lining up on pavements so as not to break Security Minister Patricia Bullrich’s hard-line “anti-picket” protocol.
The queue extended more than 30 blocks at its longest point, underlining the challenges facing impoverished Argentines who are struggling to cope with annual inflation exceeding 211 percent.
Demonstrators carried signs with slogans like "we cannot negotiate with the hunger of the people" and "we are hungry" could be seen
"Well, the people are hungry, so we are here," said Carmen Morán, who runs a soup kitchen.
"Let's see if the minister takes pity on us, on those who need it, on those at the bottom, so that the aid reaches the soup kitchens and canteens," she said.
Response
Argentina’s hunger crisis has worsened in recent weeks. Picketers are seeking a response from Milei’s government, which recently announced it would suspend food shipments to soup kitchens as it seeks to introduce a system of money transfers to canteens and associations without intermediation.
Presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni told a press conference held mid-morning that Pettovello would not receive the protesters because she had not summoned them.
"Minister Pettovello has never called them,” he declared. “Anyone who knows Sandra Pettovello knows that she would never expose people to being under the sun and heat for so long.”
"We don't want any more middlemen, we don't want any more business with the poor," he continued.
Organisers of the soup kitchens claim that they do not receive enough help from the government to meet increasing demand. Some say they received no assistance at all last month.
More than 40 percent of the population lives in poverty, according to the most recent government data, though experts say the real figure is close to half.
"There are millions of families, and the government has to understand that," said Alejandro Gramajo, secretary general of the Unión de Trabajadores y Trabajadoras de la Economía Popular (UTEP) movement and one of the organisers of Monday’s demonstration.
UTEP Deputy Secretary General Dina Sánchez, who was among those at the protest, expressed frustration with the Minister on X (formerly Twitter).
“Minister Sandra Pettovello, did you want us to line up against hunger to tell you about the situation we are experiencing?” Sánchez wrote. “Here we are, at the door of the Ministry of Human Capital. The line reaches Avenida Belgrano Avenue. Seventy percent of children are poor. We demand answers!”
President Milei has said previously that he is seeking greater transparency in food assistance efforts and wants to put an end to the "poverty managers.”
Complaints
Pettovello signed a food assistance deal on Monday with the Alianza Cristiana de Iglesias Evangélicas de la Argentina (Christian Alliance of Evangelical Churches of Argentina, ACIERA) for a total of 177.5 million pesos (approx US$210,100 at the official exchange rate).
The episode has earned Pettovello a criminal complaint from former presidential hopeful Juan Grabois, leader of the Movimiento de Trabajadores Excluidos MTE), "for not ordering the delivery of food in neighbourhood and community canteens throughout Argentina, thus violating rules that guarantee food to those who are suffering from extreme poverty.”
While hundreds queued in the heat to seek assistance from her Ministry, Pettovello was inking a new agreement with Dr Abel Albino, the controversial doctor who heads the Cooperadora Nutrición Infantil (CONIN).
A fierce conservative who previously worked for the Mauricio Macri government, Albino is a homophobic doctor who has described same-sex relations as “a problem” and condemned masturbation as “an addiction.”
"Child malnutrition is a cultural disease typical of places where the sexual act ... is usually carried out compulsively,” he said in an interview quoted by the Pagina/12 newspaper on Monday.
During a congressional hearing about Argentina’s abortion reform law, Albino claimed that condoms fail “30 percent of the time” and that they “do not protect from AIDS because the virus goes through even porcelain.”
CONIN, the organisation led by Albino, will develop and promote actions and activities within the framework of the Human Capital Ministry’s "Plan Argentina contra el Hambre," the government said in a statement.
–TIMES/NA/AFP
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