UNFAIR! MPs reject 90days leave for mothers who birth multiple children
Lawmakers have rejected the proposal to provide additional leave days for female employees who give birth to more than one child at the same time, from the current 60days like all mothers to 90 days for this category, describing the proposal as extreme and detrimental to the employers.
While presenting the report on the Employment Amendment Bill 2022 (No.2), Flavia Kabahenda, Chairperson Parliament’s Gender, Labour and Social Development Committee argued that female employees who give birth to more than one child face a harder task looking after the children, and require more time to fully recover since a multiple pregnancy is considered to be of a high risk nature to the health and body of the woman, than their counterparts who give birth to one child.
Kabahenda said, “It is important to provide additional time for maternity leave to this category of female working employees. The Committee recommends that Section 56 of the Employment Act, 2006 be amended to provide for maternity leave of 9O working days to female working employees that give b to more than one child at the same time.”
Nandala Mafabi (Budadiri West) supported the proposal citing a recent case of a mother who gave birth to quintuplets in Kasese, saying such mothers need more time to attend to their babies.
“Five children are more than one, so any woman who produces more than one child should have different days of maternity. The demand would be higher for more than one child,” he said.
He also said that in order to deal with the issue of discrimination against employing such mothers, “The Minister should prescribe that if your job is supposed to get a license, a third of the employees should be women. Instead of giving 60 days, we should allow this woman to work fewer hours.”
However, Minister of Gender, Labour and Social Development, Betty Amongi rejected the proposal to make the additional days mandatory, but rather asked to have it optional for the mothers remarking, “We would rather have it structured to give the leeway for someone who wants to return after 60days but if you say 60days is mandatory, there are some people who give birth to children but after one month, they may want to return to work.”
The Attorney General, Kiryowa Kiwanuka asked Parliament to drop the proposal describing it as extreme for the employers, arguing that 60 working days means the person is out of work for 82days, 90 working days means a person is out 122 days.
“As we make these we need to be mindful of the burden we are placing upon the employer because this is a private employer person employing someone and you are telling them the person shall be out of work for a third of the year and you have to continue paying them full wages, I feel it is a bit extreme. I pray that we drop this amendment,” argued Kiryowa.
When Deputy Speaker, Thomas Tayebwa put the question to vote on whether the proposal should be adopted, MPs voted in affirmative, thus condemning mothers who give birth to multiple kids to the same leave as the other mothers.
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