The world has just celebrated another Mothers’ Day. It is only fitting that we look at what support there is from the State and society for mothering, considering that perspectives on shared responsibilities of parenting have not changed much, and also considering that working women’s work is often not a matter of choice, but a compulsion to ensure that the home fires are kept burning.
Maternity benefits are an entitlement because of the physical act of delivery of a child and the reproduction of society by mothers, through the tasks associated with mothering. Therefore, the services of those who biologically deliver a child, or are commissioned for a child, must be duly accounted for. Any other legislation that comes to deal with this subject must be counter referenced in the law.
The enactment of the Code on Social Security 2020 has resulted in the repeal of the Maternity Benefits Act, 1961. But even this Social Security Code 2020, enacted in this day and age, has not taken into account the vast mass of working women in Goa, or the fact that besides a commissioning mother, there is also a commissioned mother.
To explain, the Code does not cover women, who are self-employed, such as the fisherwoman, the vegetable vendor, the small ‘business’ woman who provides home-made food, or are home-based workers such as those given the work of peeling cashew-nuts, and often times, there are no specified contractual agreements that would qualify them to be considered as home-based workers. These women do not have an employer. It also excludes the unorganised sector, in which, for instance, many migrant workers are engaged. At another level, professionals like lawyers, also cannot avail of the benefits of the Maternity Benefits Act, 1961, which substantially limits which women can enter or continue in the legal profession.
Neither has the law taken into account the fact that the law relates to maternity and that today, there are, for instance, transgender persons mothering too. Gig workers, who are also a growing population, are left nebulous in this Code. So also the state of those rendering IT and IT enabled services. As also domestic workers; therein lies the rub.
Further, when it comes to cost sharing for the maternity benefits, there has to be a responsibility cast as much on those employers who are technology intensive and labour extensive, and consequently, the computation of contribution may not be only in terms of the percentage of contribution towards the number of workers employed. Needless to say, the State cannot escape its liability to contribute, especially in case of employers, whose turnover and profits is limited.
Another aspect always missed is the employability of women that can be affected by the provisions that require them to have worked for 80 days prior to granting of maternity leave. In this day and age, when, for instance, Government jobs are mass announced, this can mean that women can miss the bus of employment, only because of this provision. It is understandable that there is the concern of what happens if the woman avails of maternity benefits and then never reports to work. In such a case, the woman or person can be bound over contractually, to work for a certain period. The bottom line is that maternity should not feel like a liability for a woman, because of issues of employability or terms and conditions of work.
This brings us to the point that maternity benefits seem to be only confined to leave during which regular wages are paid, but it must mean much more. It needs to be reiterated here that mothers play an important function of reproducing society, and that if we value life, we must value this service. It must include food security, creches, and medical bonus. The Code of 2020 has provided for a medical bonus of Rs 3,500 or such amount as may be notified by the Central Government, only, and that too, if no pre-natal confinement and post-natal care is provided for by the employer free of charge. This nowhere takes into account the actuals of medical expenses that may be incurred. Where there are link laws that provide for these facilities, they must be specially counter-referenced, else the mother or to be mother is lost in the labyrinthine maze of laws and procedures.
The establishment of creches is sadly lacking and at best is outsourced by the Government, instead of itself having community facilities that will enable a mother to be peacefully at work while her infant child is being taken care of in a creche. True, the responsibility of looking after a child is not just that of the mother, and that is why there is also a provision for paternity leave. But it seems that the new Code has completely missed this aspect, and may in some ways be reinforcing the patriarchal bias that reproduction is to be confined to males alone. There have been contentions that when males are provided paternity leave, they use it for other purposes, given the social biases prevalent, but that does not mean that one can just presume the same, lest it become a case of the dog-may-piss-at-the-lamp-post approach.
The family laws of Goa or for that matter, the family laws prevalent in the rest of the country too, do not have any special consideration or provisions that take into account the tasks that women undertake on account of mothering. Therefore there are provisions that provide for a bland equality of women.
In conclusion, it needs to be reinstated that the work of reproduction of society is an important task, be it done through the physical act of reproduction or the tasks and practices of mothering. Society and also the State seems to hold up a mother who sacrifices all to bring up her children, but what is needed is an approach that will ensure that such sacrifice is not called for from mothers, and that mothers can have their due place under the sun. Maternity leave must be duly complemented with a well-coordinated State infrastructure for child care.
(Albertina Almeida is a lawyer and human rights activist)
