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Philippines
Thursday, March 28, 2024

Maternity leave law pushed

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A GLOBAL women’s union yesterday called on the country’s lawmakers to give women protection the same level of attention they give to business, investments, technological advancement and education and pass Senate Bill 215 or the “Expanded Maternity Leave Act of 2016.

IndustriALL, a global union which represents 50-million workers in 140 countries in the mining, energy and manufacturing sectors, said the country’s 24-year-old Social Security Law does not follow the International Labor Organization Convention 183, or the Maternity Convention signed by the Philippines in 2000.

“It is lamentable that our lawmakers have always struggled to pass laws and craft policies for world class efficiency and global competitiveness, despite challenges of budget limitation, broken structure and structural inequalities but leave behind women protection,” said Sion Binos, the groups’ Women Chairperson.

“We are glad that Senator Risa Hontiveros, author of the bill, champions our campaign in the Senate and that lawmakers of the 17th Congress put this agenda in the early part of the Congress. We now challenge the Senate to expedite hearing on SB 215,” added Binos. 

Confident that increased maternity leave will greatly reduce child mortality in the Philippines, Hontiveros stressed that the center of this legislation is that: women workers’ rights are human rights. 

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Hontiveros cited a study by the United Nations Children’s Fund that showed that the extension of paid maternity-leave increased breastfeeding rates from 10 to 80%, providing ample protection against disease and life-threatening illnesses.

IndustriALL stands firm that increased maternity protection is good economics and is the best proof of corporate social responsibility. It enables women to carry out their exclusive biological role of bearing and nursing children while maintaining their productive roles as workers. Healthy women produce healthy babies, the future labor force, future taxpayers and the human race of the future. Combined with the existing reproductive health law, couples plan their family resulting in better child spacing.

“Studies show that mothers need 120 days to fully recover from giving birth, to breastfeed and to establish the routine for her newborn, and to make arrangements necessary for a smooth transition back to work,” said Binos.

Binos said they appeal to employers to support this call and look at their maternity protection as an investment rather than additional expense.

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