Last week the Association of African First Ladies met in Lusaka to discuss among other things, the plight of women in their child bearing years in respect to Maternity Leave.
The appeal made at this meeting was to extend Maternity Leave from the current 3 months to 6 months after delivery, and 1 month before delivery, thereby totaling to 7 months of Maternity Leave.
It is a well accepted fact that expectant mothers must be given time off from work to rest and prepare for childbirth in an effort to ensure a healthy baby is safely delivered to the community. It is also acknowledged that the first three months of life are the most crucial, and a mother should be allowed to nurse her baby during this tender period.
The call for an extension to Maternity Leave is therefore quite rightly acknowledged. However, there are challenges that this appeal invokes in the workplace and these challenges must be adequately addressed.
Every Zambian would like to ensure that parents spend as much time with their children as possible in an effort to protect children from the growing dangers of child abuse that modern society has generated. Parents note their responsibility to pass on values and culture, and would like to ensure that proper nutrition is made available to their children.
Sadly, this privilege is slowly eluding many parents as jobs and earning capacity start to take centre stage at the expense of nurturing and guiding the family. These are the consequences of urban development and changing values.
However, it becomes necessary to interrogate the appeal made by our First Ladies and look at options and opportunities to develop a new strategy to cater for changing times and demands in respect to women as part of the greater labour force, and women as mothers too.
It is interesting to note that many women in high profile jobs such as lawyers, bankers, architects, and accountants are less pressurized by the prospect of bearing a child and the Maternity Leave that they would require to safely deliver their babies to the world. This is largely so because many of these women can work from home using the internet, e-mail, the telephone, and even essential work being brought home by the office for special attention. This arrangement has been going on for many years now and there is an unwritten acceptance of it.
The challenge is for those mothers to be, that are in hands-on jobs that require their physical presence on the shop or factory floors. This is where the difficulties lie. How does a business survive when a female employee is off work for 7 months on full pay? Where do the resources come from to pay the temporary gap filling employee who stands in for 7 months? What challenges are there in respect to training and the learning curve for temporary
These are all tough questions and the answer may lie in assessing the options and the evolving influence of women in the work place. This challenge is not only for employers, but for the entire nation, because child birth is a national issue resulting in the development of national human resources.
It must be acknowledged that women comprise at least half the workforce, and in many cases exceed this quota. In Zambia, tourism, agriculture, manufacturing, and the services sector employ more women than men.
Mining at the moment is dominated by male employees but this represents only one sector out of five.
Most hotels, lodges and guest houses employ more women than men because of the first impression challenges that usually either attracts a customer or repels prospective business, and the natural ability and appreciation that women have for cleanliness, tidiness, and service.
Peasant farming and commercial farming manual work is generally carried out by women country wide. The cut flower industry specifically employs women because of their delicate touch and ability to pack flowers without damaging the petals or stems. This is also true for picking and packing of fruit and vegetables.
Ironically, the expectation that women may not be prominent in manufacturing is a myth. Many manufacturing
The services industry is fast becoming a women's world as more women lawyers, doctors, economists, bankers, travel agents, insurance brokers, and sales persons are employed every day.
The argument for taking care of our women folk who are also the custodians of our future generations cannot be more evident. The appeal by our First Ladies should trigger some innovative thinking during these 16 days of activism on the rights and well being of women world wide.
There is an opportunity to develop some social security safety nets for women that can integrate with the employers such that the challenge and burden of a 7 month Maternity Leave option can be shared amongst all the stakeholders and a solution can be found to convert the appeal into a lived reality.
The Nordic countries have developed their own solutions to the extent that beyond Maternity Leave they have introduced Paternity Leave to enable the father to also play a significant role in the nurturing of the new born child.
Zambia and the region can adopt and adapt some strategies from the developed world and infuse them with our own cultural practices such that the recognition of women as a positive resource in development can be acknowledged through positive action, rather than mere statistics which do no pay the bills or nurture society as a whole.
Published 1 December 2009
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