The ManicaPost
Simbarashe Musara
Post Correspondent
The traditional gender roles in society dictate that it is the role of women to take care of the children at home while the men work for the family.
However, through globalisation, the traditional gender roles are being abandoned as women are now actively involved in employment.
With the emerging of the egalitarian ideology which dictates that all persons are equal and deserve equal opportunities, women are grabbing those opportunities and are exceling at their workplaces.
Surely men also deserve the opportunity to help in taking care of their children.
The granting of leave due to childbirth is what is referred to as maternity and paternity leave.
The International Labour Organization, a branch of the United Nations, created the first standard in 1919.
This seek to protect women before and after childbirth.
The Zimbabwean legislators legalized maternity leave in the Labour Act (Chapter 18).
This gives women ninety-eight days for child birth and taking care of the child.
With the role of fathers becoming more important in modern society, family friendly legislature should be drafted so that there is equality on both genders when it comes to taking care of the children.
The people who are eligible for this are biological parents, custodial adults and adoptive parents. Many countries have already given men the right to have time with their children.
In countries like Norway, a man can take 15 weeks off work, while Canada (five weeks), France (two to four weeks), Sweden (480 days) and South Africa (10 days) arealso giving paternity leave to men.
In Zimbabwe, there is no legislation that grants paternity leave and yet the Constitution of Zimbabwe, Section 56, advocates for the equality of all persons and outlawS discrimination on the basis of gender.
As men are part of the child’s life, they are equally entitled to be around their child, especially in those first few weeks of birth, hence the need for considering paternity leave.
The World Health Organisation has noted that enabling young children to achieve their full developmental potential is a human right. For this to be achieved, both parents are needed from child birth.
Family plays a critical role in the child’s care and development. Parents are the first teachers of children.
They teach children values, security, skill and socialisation.
A family is made up of one or two parents or a guardian and their child or children living together as a unit.
This unit will obviously want to be present during the birth of a new member of a family, thus the necessity of paternity leave.
The paternity leave will benefit both the mother and the father of the child.
The father has the chance to bond with their child very early.
This will also avail the chance for the equal distribution of responsibilities as both parents are equally responsible for the child.
With equal responsibility, the pressure is taken off the mother as they will have a partner to assist them in caring for the child. The critical support from fathers as they give care reduces gender discrimination.
This will also give a boost to the careers of women as the “motherhood penalty” will be removed.
The motherhood penalty is the career repression that women face as they are not considered for critical and demanding jobs due to gender and their child caring responsibilities.
With the responsibilities shared equally, the penalty will be removed.
Indeed, it is now time for Zimbabwe to tear up the traditional gender roles and give men the same rights as women in relation to paternity leave as they are equally responsible for their children in all aspects.
