SENATE on Monday cleared the much awaited law that makes it mandatory for public and private sector organizations to grant maternity and paternity leaves to their employees. The female employees are already getting a ninety-day maternity leave under a law but this is the first time that the provision of paternity leave has been included in the new bill with the aim to provide fathers the opportunity to be there at a crucial time without the added responsibility of the workplace.
Paternity leave is applicable in many of the European countries which are given to the fathers before and after child birth in order to support the mother, to care for older children or to spend time with the family. The average paternity leave period granted in the EU-28 states is about 1.3 weeks whilst the bill passed by our Senate allows a father one month leave whilst the mother up to six months. In fact we fully support the paternity leave but nowhere in the world is there a provision of so many leaves in this category. Since the public sector employees already enjoy forty eight leaves in a year, therefore, we will suggest that these paternity leaves must be brought down to a week or ten days time. Already our country is grappling with the issue of population explosion. Currently, Pakistan is the fifth most populous country in the world with around 217 million people and a population growth rate of 2.4 per cent per year. Giving such an incentive to the employees will only further increase the population growth rate. As the bill is yet to be passed by the National Assembly, we expect that the lawmakers will give a serious consideration to it and rationalize these leaves. Then it must also be ensured that these paid leaves are granted to both the permanent and contractual staff without any discrimination. Then, the main focus in fact should be provision of better health and education facilities to the children.
