Lagos State for the first time in the country, has granted a 10 working day paternity leave to male employees as a way to encourage good parenting among its workforce. Its also extended the maternity leave of its female employees by three months, bringing it to a total of six months. However, both the extension of maternity and the 10-day paternity leaves will apply only for the first two births of the couple, after which the female employees revert to the old 3 months, while the male employee ceases to enjoy such privilege. This, it was said was to enable them give their new born babies the required attention in their first few months in life. The policy, which is in line with the state’s policy of exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of a baby’s life, will enable mothers take proper care of their babies and recoup well from the stress of child birth before resuming work. Head of Service, Mrs Josephine Oluseyi Williams, said the review of the leave policy was informed by the government’s conviction that the inability of parents to adequately fulfill their parental role due to extensive work life accounted for some social ills in the society. Chief among the consequences of extensive work life of career officers in the public service was reduced attention by such parents to the basic developmental needs of their infants, especially during the first 6months. Meanwhile men in many nations around the world have enjoyed paternity leave. Great Britain parents will also from April 2015, be able to share 12 months of leave after the birth of a child. Scandinavia, Norway,Sweden and Iceland men enjoy this leave in different ways. The United states also has a no-paid parental leave; a maximum of 12 weeks unpaid parental leave for mothers and fathers. In Africa however, fathers hardly get paternity leave at all, although Kenya offers 2weeks and French-speaking west Africa: Cameroon, Chad, Gabon, Cote d’Ivoire allow 10 days while new dads in South Africa get a meagre 3days. Australia allows partners to share up to 52 weeks of unpaid leave, Japan offers a year’s unpaid leave to each parent and South Korea allows both parents partially paid parental leave for up to 1year... What are your thoughts on this?
Posted on: Tue, 22 Jul 2014 16:46:13 +0000
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