The Daily Star - 10-week maternity leave too short: mothers, May 1 2012

By Olivia Alabaster

BEIRUT: Maternity leave in Lebanon, at seven weeks fully paid, is one of the lowest in the world, but a draft law passed by Cabinet two weeks ago, if also approved by Parliament, will increase leave to 10 weeks.

However, this still falls short of the International Labor Organization’s recommended minimum of 14 weeks, and mothers and experts in Lebanon say this is simply not enough time to bond with one’s baby or to be in the best state of mind to return to work.

Linda Dahdah, 34, has recently returned to work as a web editor at the Lebanese American University after having her second child.

During her first pregnancy, due to her husband being transferred to China for his job, Dahdah was able to take some time off work, and spent six months with her newborn.

But the second time around, she was only able to take 49 days leave.

“You don’t feel physically and psychologically ready to leave your child,” she says. “It’s still the beginning, so you’ve not yet had a full night’s sleep – you come to work and you’re not fully awake.”

Also, as there is no allowance for breastfeeding time once back at work – as in France where mothers are allowed one month off work before their due date, two months after and an extra month if breastfeeding, all at full pay – Dahdah, who worked until the day she gave birth, could only breastfeed her second child for exactly 49 days.

“I felt guilty about it,” she says. “So you have this guilt toward your child and your work.”

Now she has returned to work, her mother and mother-in-law are looking after her baby. “I’m so lucky there,” she says. “It’s tough to put your child in daycare when they’re that young.”

Dahdah says the six months she spent with her first child before returning to work was the perfect amount of time. During that period, she says, “I needed him as much as he needed me.”

That six months was definitely enough time, Dahdah says, and after that she “needed to go back to work. I was completely ready then.”

Dahdah hopes that maternity leave is increased to 10 weeks, and wishes she had these extra three weeks, but adds that this is still not enough time. “You really only gain all your faculties back after a few months.”

Now, having only recently returned to her job, Dahdah says that it has been hard to find the balance between work and her personal life. “You go home after work and you feel you haven’t spent enough time with your kids, and at work you feel you’re not being as productive as you could be.”

Lebanon currently has the shortest maternity leave in the world after the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, both at 45 days.

The current draft law, which will have to go through the parliamentary committee stage before being voted on by MPs, falls four weeks short of the ILO’s recommended minimum 14 weeks, but Zahrani MP Michel Musa, who co-wrote the law with Kesrouan MP Gilberte Zwein, says that it must be tackled step by step.

“We should do things gradually – 10 weeks was decided on after consultations with civil society organizations,” he says.

In 2000, the ILO passed a convention on protection which stipulated mothers should be allowed 14 weeks leave, with pay at no less than two-thirds of their previous earnings. While Lebanon did not ratify this convention, Ursula Kulke, regional social security expert for the organization, says the ILO encourages the Lebanese government to increase maternity leave to 14 weeks with incremental steps.

“The ILO always welcomes improvements in legislation, however the Lebanese government has to go a step further,” Kulke says.

“A jump from seven to 14 weeks might be difficult to implement, politically, at once, so we encourage the government to add a further two weeks, after a certain period of time, and then a further two weeks at a later date.”

Jinane Khashouf, author of the Lebanese Working Mothers blog, was working as a teacher when she had her first child, and timed the birth to coincide with the start of the summer holidays, allowing her three months at home with her child.

Now working as an HR consultant full time, Khashouf, 31, had to take unpaid leave ahead of the birth of her second child, now 1-year-old, and then the seven weeks maternity leave, which cannot begin before your due date. “Seven weeks was just terrible, it is nowhere near enough time.”

As most day-care centers only accept babies from the age of 12 months, with only a handful taking in babies as young as a few months, Khashouf says that if her mother were not around to help with child care, she would not have had a second child.

“Also, most day-care centers shut at 3 or 4 p.m,” she adds. “But I am working until 5 p.m. Luckily I had my mother, but what about people who don’t have this?”

Having returned to work after her youngest child was born, Khashouf continued to pump breast milk at work, in the toilets, which, she says, “is obviously not ideal. It’s hardly the most hygienic environment.”

Khashouf would like to see the government introduce an optional additional period of time, up to around six months, which would be at half pay, and after which a woman could be assured her job would still be waiting for her.

Nadine Moawad, of the feminist collective Nasawiya, also supports this idea.

“Many countries offer additional optional leave at 50 percent payment for the mother. Ideally, it should be a parental leave and the option should go to either the mother or the father to take it up,” she says. Currently fathers are only allowed to take one day of paternity leave.

Moawad believes the current draft law is too weak.

“We should promote and empower women’s active participation in the workforce and, therefore, afford them all the support when they choose to have children,” she says.

For Dahdah, society’s expectations of what she should be able to achieve as a working mother exert additional pressure. “It does feel like as a woman you have to juggle between your house, your kids and your job,” she says.

Upon returning to work after childbirth, “Lebanese society expects you to be on the top of everything, but at the same time you’re not ready for this, emotionally or physically, and you just want to be with your child.”

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2012/May-01/171995-10-week-maternity-leave-too-short-mothers.ashx