Country will be first in Africa to introduce measure after its high court ruled that both parents must have right to time off
South Africa is set to become the first country in Africa to introduce shared parental leave after a high court ruled that both parents must have the right to time off after the birth of a baby or adopting a child.
The landmark judgment allows parents to choose how to divide four months parental leave between them.
Continue reading...Angela Crawley’s private member’s bill aims to grant three days of statutory paid leave to grieving parents
Ministers have been urged to back proposals that would grant paid leave to parents who have experienced miscarriage.
Under current UK law, people are not granted maternity leave or pay if they have had a miscarriage.
Continue reading...Founder of campaign group Pregnant Then Screwed says parents are being set up to fail
More than 15,000 people are expected to take to the streets across the UK calling for government reforms to a childcare and parental leave structure that critics describe as dangerous and devastating.
Saturday’s March of the Mummies, organised by the campaign group Pregnant Then Screwed, is expected to bring out thousands of parents and children across 11 cities, with the author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the actor Sarah Solemani and the Labour MP Stella Creasy among those expected to attend.
Continue reading...Vulnerable women face huge bills before giving birth, campaigners say
The health of pregnant migrant women and their unborn babies is being put at risk due to fears around NHS charging, with some trusts demanding upfront fees for maternity care or wrongly charging those who are exempt, it has been claimed.
Vulnerable migrant and asylum-seeking women with no recourse to public funds are frequently being issued huge bills ahead of giving birth or aggressively pursued for payments during their pregnancy against current guidance, maternity rights groups have warned.
Continue reading...The Labour politician is used to fighting battles – but can she win her latest: convincing her colleagues to back proper maternity cover for fellow members?
Stella Creasy is dodging people on the pavement as we talk. She apologises for the background noise but it’s hard finding time for a conversation when you have a newborn son, a toddler daughter, and no proper maternity leave from a full-time job as Labour MP for Walthamstow; this walk to an appointment is the only window she has. Last month, she spoke in a Commons debate on childcare, baby Pip in a sling, sounding astonishingly composed for someone who had given birth four weeks earlier. I ask how she’s feeling and she laughs briefly and says: “Tired as hell, mad as anything.”
And then it all comes tumbling out: the night before that debate, she’d been in hospital with an infection she thinks was brought on by doing too much. The day after her caesarean, she was dialling into meetings with the defence secretary from hospital – she has had about 200 cases in her London constituency of people seeking help getting family members out of Afghanistan – and has barely stopped since. “There wasn’t any alternative,” she says. “These are people ringing up my staff threatening to kill themselves because they’re so worried about family members. You can hear the terror in their voices.” Meanwhile, she’s grappling with “the mum guilt” for not taking more time off, while struggling to be patient with people in parliament who ask how she is, only to back away when answered honestly. Having lost a battle with the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) this summer over the maternity leave cover she wanted, Creasy refuses to draw a polite veil over the consequences. And if that means breaking the working mother taboo against admitting that everything is not in fact fine, then so be it.
Continue reading...But Not Maternity Alliance says postcode lottery remains despite guidance issued in December
The majority of women who have received bad news about their pregnancy since December were on their own at the time, despite the NHS ordering trusts to allow partners to be present throughout scans, labour and birth, the Guardian can reveal.
An alliance of pregnancy rights campaigners have written to the health secretary, Matt Hancock, urging him to draw up a roadmap for easing visiting restrictions in maternity services.
Continue reading...Cabinet minister hopes move will improve attitudes to male parenting in country with dwindling birthrate
Japan’s environment minister has announced that he will take paternity leave when his first child is born this month, the first time a cabinet minister in the country has publicly committed to such a move.
Shinjirō Koizumi, a media-savvy 38-year-old, married to a former television anchorwoman, told a ministry meeting it had been a difficult decision to balance his duties as minister and his desire to be with his newborn.
Continue reading...Spain’s paternity leave was part of a set of policies to promote gender equality in the labor market and at home, a researcher said
Parents who received paid paternity leave took longer to have another child and men’s desire for more children dropped, a study in Spain has found. The progressive reform towards gender equality may have changed the way men in the Mediterranean country see fertility.
The introduction of paternity leave in Spain, like in other countries, was part of a set of policies designed to promote gender equality both in the labor market and at home, said Libertad González, one of the researchers behind the report. It was also to promote fertility. “Spain is a low-fertility country,” González said. But it seemed to have the opposite effect.
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