The Polo Obrero social organization is launching 128 pickets across the country following  the recently published poverty numbers and against the national government and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“Austerity measures have consequences in the lack of food in children, the lack of education, the lack of work,” head of the Polo Obrero Eduardo Belliboni told the Herald. “It’s strange that some politicians and some media outlets are surprised that there is a protest. Of course there is going to be a protest with 50% of Argentine children living in poverty.”

“We’re facing a social catastrophe.”

The protests will start at 10 a.m and  will take place in 20 provinces as well as Buenos Aires City. The Polo Obrero will block six accesses to the capital –the Pueyrredón and La Noria bridges, the 197 and Panamericana intersection, and the La Plata, General Pass and Route 3.

Last week, the National Institute for Statistics and Census (INDEC) published that, during the second semester of 2022, 39.2% of Argentines were below the poverty line and 8.1% were below the destitution threshold. The report also found that 54.2% of children aged 0 to 14 were poor and 12% were destitute.

The organization is also protesting against cuts to the Potenciar Trabajo social program. In its last review of Argentina’s economic program, the IMF said that the government suspended “around 97,000 ineligible claimants.”

Belliboni said that the official reason for the cuts, “transparency,” is not true. 

“These are austerity measures pushed by the IMF,” he said. 

According to him, Potenciar Trabajo raises the bar for wages and their beneficiaries have to work in exchange for the salary.

He mentioned that people who collect the benefit “sustain soup kitchens all over the country” and “clean vacant lands in poor neighborhoods.”

“The government is foregoing its national sovereignty,” he said. “The IMF is ruling through the Peronist party.”