Extension of maternity leave: Stakeholders discuss amendments

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Mr Sosu

A stakeholders engagement for the extension of maternity leave, introduce paternity leave and the removal of taxes on menstrual hygiene products was held in Accra yesterday.

The engagement is geared towards the amendment of relevant provisions of the Labour Act, specifically sections 20 and 57(1) and the Customs (Amendment) (No.2) Bill, 2023.

If successful, the Private Members Bill being sponsored by the MP for Madina, Francis-Xavier Sosu, would increase the current three months maternity leave to four months, introduce a seven-day leave for fathers and scrap the 20 per cent import duties imposed on menstrual hygiene products.

At the instance of the Madina MP, the participants at the engagement include academia, women interest groups, traditional authorities, labour, professionals amongst others.

Opening the forum, Mr Sosu underscored the need for lactating mothers to have adequate time to recuperate from their postpartum, receive the needed assistance from the husband and be ready for work.

In his view, this repositions the mother both mentally, physically and makes them psychologically fit to resume work and be productive.

The tax on menstrual hygiene products, Mr Sosu said, must be relooked at because the cost barrier inhibits many women from being able to afford for the monthly cycle.

The Member for Akyem Abuakwa North, Gifty Twum-Ampofo, wanted the discussions to be dispassionate and apolitical.

To her, realistically, excusing women from work puts their livelihoods at risk if employers were forced to get a replacement as they recuperate from child birth.

She wanted a more practical and pragmatic policy within the organisations to give lactating mothers the space to recuperate, and at the same time not affecting productivity.

But the Director of Research and Consultancy Centre at the University of Professional Studies, Accra, Prof. Abigail Opoku Mensah, wanted the proposed four months to be extended to six months.

She argued that science had established that for a healthy child, six months of exclusive breastfeeding was needed and that to recall a lactating mother to work after three months, as currently was, denied the child of the needed time with the mother and father.

Prof. Mensah who is also an Industrial and Organisational Psychologist said it was a crime against nature to tax menstrual hygiene products when the monthly cycle of menstruation was a natural phenomenon.

The Deputy Ranking on the Gender, Children and Social Protection Committee and MP for Afram Plains North, Betty Nana Afuah Krosbi Mensah, on her part said it would be in the interest of employers to give their employees the needed time to recover from birth.

Calling for support for the amendments, Ms Mensah said employers must rather be supportive of the proposed amendments since it would give their staff a healthy mind to deliver as expected

BY JULIUS YAO PETETSI