The promotion of paternity leave will be an important step towards ensuring gender equality in Moldova. This provision, if it is stipulated in the legislation, will increase the continuous involvement of women with children in work and will undermine gender stereotypes in society. It will also more actively engage the fathers in the growth and education of children and will reduce the gender discrepancy in unpaid work. These are the conclusions of an analytical note compiled by the Partnership for Development Center in support of a bill that introduces paternity leave.
The Center’s vice director Galina Precup, in a news conference at IPN, said the bill provides that fathers will be entitled to 14-day leave paid from the social insurance fund. Experience shows that this period, though it is not so long, is enough for modeling the family relations. That affective tie between the father and child and between the mother and father is established during the child’s first days of life and becomes very durable. “It was proven that a family where the father takes part in the education of the child and assumes particular commitments to look after the child easier decides to have the second and third child,” she stated.
Andrei Brighidin, of East Europe Foundation, said that participants in the last meeting of the parliamentary commission on social protection and family recommended reducing the paternity leave from 14 days, as it was proposed initially, to three days. “In this connection, we, civil society, warn public opinion about the importance of the paternity leave and its effects at a time when the situation concerning gender stereotypes is alarming and we have gender equality on paper only, not yet in the political and economic spheres,” he said.
Platform for Gender Equality vice president Alina Andronache said birth giving is a gif of the women, but the growing and education of the personality must involve both of the parents. “When a child is born, not only the child, but also the mother need to be supported and loved. Therefore, the father’s role is very important because two persons need his care and support,” she stated.
The representative of Romanian civil society Peter Vlad Ianushevici noted that the children play a huge role in transforming a father. “I took part in the birth of our girl and this was the most transforming and important experience in my life,” he stated.
On the initiative of the Ministry of Labor, Social Protection and Family, the Government decided to draft a bill to amend and supplement a number of legal acts on the equality of chances between women and men. One of the amendments introduces the 14-day paternity leave. The changes are to be adopted by Parliament.
