Women groups, Nafisa Atiku Foundation and the Anti-Sexual Violence Lead Support Initiative (ASVIOL), in collaboration with the French Embassy Nigeria, are advocating for the review of the Maternal Leave Law, and its enforcement across the formal and informal sectors of the nation.
Section 54, subsections (1-4) of the Nigeria’s Labour Act states that women are entitled to 12 weeks of maternity leave, that covers pre-and-post maternity period, and 50 per cent of their salaries while on leave.
The groups said, “As human differ in physiological and psychological make-up, so do women’s bodies and their reactions to emotional and life-changing event as pregnancy and childbirth. Thus, it takes some women a longer period to recover.
“Evidence further shows that many private organisations do not adhere to the Maternal Law Provisions. Some allow their female staff just a week or few weeks of maternity leave without pay, while at other private institutions, childbirth is as good as a demotion, or loss of employment.”
Both groups believe that as a human right, maternal leave law should be reviewed and implemented across all levels of government, private sector and the informal sector of the labour in Nigeria.
Speaking of her painful experience as a mother of a 2-year-old toddler, Nafisa Atiku said the Maternity Leave should be extended beyond 12 weeks to 6 months, and women should be paid their full salaries as opposed to half of it while on leave.
She also advocated for a punitive law to fine organisations that default on the Maternity Law, and advised government set up a taskforce under the Ministry of Women Affairs to ensure implementation of Maternity Leave Law, at the federal and state level.
Adopting flexible and remote working policies, she said, will help organisations accomplish more work while ensuring women balance different aspects of their lives without necessarily losing their jobs or being demoted post childbirth.
Executive director, ASVIOL, Hassana Maina, said awareness creation on the Maternity Leave Law should be carried out among Nigerians and Nigerian women, particularly those at the grassroots and at the informal work spaces.
She urged for the regulation of the informal sector, as a means of engendering implementation of the law.
Speaking with LEADERSHIP Weekend at the event, Cooperation Attache on Humanitarian Affairs, CSOs, Health, Environment and Gender at the French Embassy Nigeria, Ketty Regis, said gender and equality has remained one of the main issues that it supports. It does so by ensuring that gender is included in all its area of focus – Gender, Health, Environment and Humanitarian Issues.
But gender, Regis said, is not restricted to solely women rather both male and female.