Incidences of discrimination against pregnant women at work double in the past ten years
URGENT ACTION is needed to give pregnant women and new mothers more protection at work, a parliamentary report has said.
MPs on the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee called for a German-style system which would ban employers from making women redundant during and after pregnancy except in specific exceptional circumstances.
The recommendation comes as research revealed a “shocking” increase in discrimination over the past 10 years.
The committee also called for a “substantial” cut in the £1,200 fee for women taking a pregnancy-related discrimination case to an employment tribunal, and said rights to paid time off for antenatal appointments should be extended to casual, agency and zero-hours workers.
The new report cited statistics showing that the number of expectant and new months forced to leave their job because of concerns about the safety of their child or pregnancy discrimination has doubled over the past decade to 54,000.
And more than one in 10 (11 per cent) of pregnant women and new mothers reported being dismissed, singled out for compulsory redundancy or forced out of their job by poor treatment, according to research carried out by the former Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), said the report.
Committee chairwoman Maria Miller said: “The arrival of a new baby puts family finances under extreme pressure yet, despite this, thousands of expectant and new mothers have no choice but to leave their work because of concerns about the safety of their child or pregnancy discrimination. Shockingly this figure has almost doubled in the last decade, now standing at 54,000.
“The Government’s approach has lacked urgency and bite. It needs to set out a detailed plan outlining the specific actions it will take to tackle this unacceptable level of discrimination.”
In Germany, a dismissal ban prevents redundancies for pregnant employees except in extremely rare exceptional cases.