By: Vatsala Bhusry, Bureau Chief-ICN Delhi
NEW DELHI: The Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act 2017, passed by the upper and lower house of the Indian Parliament increases the maternity leave available to working women from 12 weeks to 26 weeks for the first two children. Maternity leave for children beyond the first two and to mothers adopting a child below the age of three months as well as the commissioning mothers (surrogate mother) will continue to be 12 weeks.
Along with every establishment with more than 50 employees to provide for crèche facilities for working mothers and they will be permitted to make four visits during working hours to look after and feed the child in the crèche. The amendments in the Act were taken up to bring about these changes so that a working woman gets time to exclusively breast-feed her child for 6 months after the birth. This period also enables the working mother to recuperate herself before she goes to back to work.
What about women working in the unorganised sector?
It is estimated 94% of the total female work force is to be found working in the unorganized sector. The amendment to the law only benefits miniscule percentage of the women population while ignoring a large demographic toiling in the country’s unorganised sector such as contractual workers, casual workers, self-employed women, domestic workers, agricultural labourers, and construction workers.
The amendment in the Maternity Benefit Act does not safeguard the needs of women working in the unorganized sector while they are nursing a new born. Most of these women anyway can barely earn minimum income which makes them economically more vulnerable. Given their perilous financial positions, many of them are compelled to return to work sooner than they should.
As most of these women working in the unorganized sector have labour-intensive tasks, which requires them to put in their physical strength, invariably jeopardizing their own and the infant’s health. This not only affects the health of the child but also devoid them from having proper nourishment at an early age.
On one hand we are framing national policies and schemes to empower women at all levels but what about their basic human rights which does not discriminate between women working in the organized or unorganized sector. This makes the amendment to the Act of no use universally to our country. Will it be justifiable if we leave the major lot of the women population from the ambit of the amended Maternity Benefit law. These benefits should be universally available to all women, including daily wage earners. But the Act ignores this completely by focussing only on women in the organised sector.
Most of the women working as contractual labour face huge exploitative work conditions and are nowhere recognised under the purview of labour laws, so the question of availing any benefits from the Maternity Benefits Act is farfetched.
Gaps in the Amended Act
The moment a woman becomes pregnant she is seen as a liability in the eyes of an employer, how are we working on the provisions to change the mindsets of the employers in our society. The employers have a tendency of not giving opportunities to women who are newly married and are most of the times suppressed if serving under the probation period. The chance of converting them to a permanent position is eliminated instantly in the organized sector.
Employers avoid appointing women in critical functions out of an unwillingness to cope with women’s life cycle changes and sometimes seeking an undertaking on avoiding pregnancy. Some of the employers give maternity leave without pay. These gaps in the Amended Maternity benefit Act need to be addressed, as often some women fight back, while others succumb to pressure and get deprived from their right to Maternity Benefits.
Currently, women employed in small scale establishments with 10 or more employees, are eligible for paid maternity leave up to 12 weeks under the Maternity Benefits Act. There are various other labour laws provided for maternity benefits one such being the ‘Employees State Insurance Act, 1948’. This provides for payment of wages to an insured woman, during her 12-week maternity leave.
Women employed in newspapers or working as journalists are entitled to similar maternity leave under the Working Journalists (Conditions of Service) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1955. Central government provides their women employees about 24 weeks of paid maternity leave and additional child care leave up to a period of two years.
The percentage of women in India represent only 24% of the paid labour force, as against the global average of 40%, according to a recent gender parity report. How is the new Maternity Benefit Act helping to minimize the gender gap of women’s participation in national work force?
The economic loss of non-participation of women has adverse impacts on the economy and if they are not given basic benefits how will they be able to contribute their skill to our nation? The Act further requires an employer to inform a woman worker of her rights under the Act at the time of her appointment. This is not followed universally by employers, those who are aware are able to benefit the rest are left out because of lack of knowledge.
The necessity of providing a defined structure by the Government to the unorganized employment sector is vital. Despite constituting a major percentage of the economy (unorganized sector employees) and playing an important role in the Indian economy, unfortunately there is no protection given to these socially and economically deprived sections of our society. Therefore, there is an accordant need to ensure protection, especially to the pregnant women working in the unorganized sector through the Maternity Benefit Act.
An awareness drive needs to be taken by the Government in order to impart the knowledge of the Act and its benefits all over the nation as not much has been done. There is a constant need for monitoring the implementation of the law in various sectors for insuring the outreach of the benefits to pregnant women. Government at all tiers need to address the concerns of this large population of working women.
The amended Act is undoubtedly being well initiated but its implementation is a concern as it does not cover the unorganised sector. Changing the mindsets of the employers is another aspect which needs to be worked on. This is not achievable only through bringing about new legislations. It has been more than a year since the amended Maternity Benefit Act, 2017 has been implemented and its outreach and implementation are still a question.
