“My mother cried for the first time when the state told her that she wasn’t considered a war widow because my father was killed during the Turkish invasion.”
“When our mother was diagnosed with cancer and 95.5% blindness, they told us she wasn’t entitled to home care because she had €60,000. We turned to the banks and were informed that there was no money. Later, they approved only €240 because my mother would stay at my house.”
“They didn’t approve her for Minimum Guaranteed Income (MGI) because she had a few euros more income than what would make her eligible.”
“Officials from the Welfare Office came and asked our mother to give up some of her four children for adoption because they believed a single woman couldn’t manage alone.”
“We were forced to accept that our father had retired at 55. I called the Ministry of Justice and spoke to Mr. M…, telling him they had promised us a promotion and he responded: ‘Are you serious? Since he wasn’t working?'”
“I replied, ‘How could he work when he’s been missing since he was 28?'”
“Mr. M… apologized to me. In 2016, they informed us that his bones had been located. His last words to our mother before he left for war were, “Take care of our babies and your children.”
The above are the words of Georgia Pavlou, daughter of special police officer Panagiotis Pavlou.
Pavlou mentioned the above in front of the Parliamentary Committee on Refugees.
She also informed the MPs that, retrospectively and after so many deprivations, the family discovered they were entitled to benefits since 1974, which they never received and no one informed them about.
It is noted that the pension and lump sum of Panagiotis Pavlou, instead of being calculated in full (given that he was killed at 28), were calculated based on the three years he served in the Police before being killed, as if he was capable of working and didn’t.
His daughter also mentioned that, according to relevant legislation, he should have been promoted posthumously.
However, the family was informed that Panagiotis Pavlou retired at the highest rank of the A1 scale, as a regular special police officer. So well!
Minister of Justice Marios Hartsiotis committed to personally addressing the case.
