AKEL on Mother’s Day

 

12 May 2024, AKEL C.C. Press Office, Nicosia

Mother’s Day – the second Sunday of every month of May – is dedicated to the universal symbol of selfless love, warmth and protection. Especially this year, our thoughts are with the mothers in those corners of the world where wars are raging with thousands of children as victims.

At the same time, in our country, recognition and respect for the figure of the mother and the role of motherhood on the part of the State cannot be just sentimental and commemorative. It must first and foremost be translated into policies, structures and infrastructure of a modern welfare state based on the recognition of the social role of motherhood.

This is precisely why AKEL continues to assert, among other things:

• Effective implementation of legislation to protect working pregnant women, post-natal women and new mothers from employer arbitrariness
• Increase of maternity leave from the first child to 26 weeks, as recommended by the World Health Organization
• Full coverage of maternity/paternity/parental leave benefits through collective agreements
• Extension of parental leave so that it can be taken by working parents until the child’s 15th birthday (instead of the current 8th birthday), as provided for in a relevant AKEL Bill Proposal
• Implementation of the 2018 legislation on the operation of breastfeeding and milk pumping facilities in workplaces
• Integration of the dimension of the single-parent family (usually headed by the mother) in the whole matrix of the state’s social-family policy
• Creation of crèches/day nurseries in large public and private organisations to serve working people with young children.

In putting forward these assertions, AKEL wishes good health and prosperity to all mothers in our country and all over the world.

12.05.2024