HeForShe champion wants maternity leave extended to six months
A mother breastfeeds her little baby.
What you need to know:
Muhammed Khan, a HeForShe (He for She) advocate, says working mothers need more time to rest and bond with their newborns.
The campaign, which is aimed at culminating in a law, also seeks to have the working hours reduced for married career women who have families to be working from 9am to 3pm.
A gender activist has reignited the debate on maternity leave, launching a campaign that could see its extension from the current three months to six months.
Muhammed Khan, a HeForShe (He for She) advocate, says working mothers need more time to rest and bond with their newborns.
In an interview with Nation.Africa, he saidhis proposal is to have working mothers have full three-month maternity leave, then work half day for the next three months.
Law
The campaign, which is aimed at culminating in a law, also seeks to have the working hours reduced for married career women who have families to be working from 9am to 3pm.
“In most instances, the woman is required to work for the same hours as the man then go home and still do some domestic chores for the family. We need to be fair to women by being mindful of their welfare. By reducing their working hours, we will make them do their kitchen work and other domestic chores with even more passion,” says Khan.
Currently, a female employee is entitled to three fully paid maternity leave on top of their statutory annual leave.
Khan, who is also an Imam, seeks to use the campaign to have sharing of gender roles, including household roles, equally between the man and wife in scenarios where both are working.
“Time has come to prepare both men and women for gender roles. Just as responsibilities are these days being shared between men and women, it is equally important to share the gender roles,” he says.
To make the campaign a success, Khan says that he is working with the National Assemblies Leaders Spouses Association to see how a bill can be presented in parliament.
The activist is confident that his campaign will bear fruit and culminate in a bill that will eventually be passed in Parliament.
In recent times, there have been attempts by several Kenyans to review existing law guiding maternity and paternity leave.
Previous efforts
In 2017, then-Buuri MP Kinoti Gatobu proposed an amendment to the Employment Act that sought to extend maternity leave by another three months without pay.
Had the bill passed, it could have seen working mothers spend at least six months at home with their newborns. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) Maternity Protection Convention recommends maternity leave for at least 18 weeks or four-and-a-half months.
Currently, 119 countries meet the ILO standard of 12 weeks, with 62 of those countries providing for 14 weeks or more. Only 31 countries mandate maternity leave of less than 12 weeks.
Countries in Africa have diverse policies and laws governing maternity and paternity leave for employees. In Uganda, female employees are entitled to 60 working days of maternity leave, while in Tanzania, one ought to have been an employee for at least six months to qualify for the 84-day paid maternity leave.
In South Africa, an employer is not compelled by law to give female employees paid maternity leave, but it demands that they are allowed a four-month break.
Paternity leave
In January, a Nakuru doctor sparked a storm after he filed a petition in court to have male employees allocated the same number of leave days as their female counterparts after childbirth.
Dr Magare Gikenyi argued that the vast difference in the number of leave days for women and men stipulated in the Employment Act, 2007, is a clear act of discrimination against the latter.
Gikenyi insisted that scientific research had shown that fathers play an equally important role as mothers during the first three months after childbirth and are, therefore, important that they also be granted the same number of leave days as their spouses.
The medic, however, clarified that his petition was not calling for the maternity period to be shortened but was rather aimed at advocating equality at the workplace.
Currently, male employees in the country are only entitled to two weeks of paternity leave with full pay.
Hungary, Sweden, Estonia, Iceland, Slovenia and Norway are some of the countries in the world where men and women enjoy equal maternity and paternity leave of three months.
