The Fiji Trades Union Congress (FTUC) has called for menstruation to be recognised as a natural biological process rather than an illness, urging lawmakers to provide separate menstrual leave for women workers instead of classifying it under sick leave entitlements.
Speaking during the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Economic Affairs’ public consultation on the review of the Employment Relations Bill today, FTUC Coordinator Jotika Sharma said she is concerned that the draft bill treated menstruation as a form of sickness.
Sharma says menstruation should not fall under the 10 days of annual sick leave already available to workers, as that would effectively reduce women’s entitlement to general sick leave.
She adds some might say it is discriminatory as the leave only applies to women, and not men.
In response, Deputy Chairperson of the Standing Committee Premila Kumar,acknowledged the importance of the issue but says the committee also needed to consider Fiji’s economic realities.
Kumar says they will need to be practical about things, and as a small developing nation with an economy of less than $5 billion, she says they must look at how to manage this issue practically.
Kumar says the committee had heard varying views from the public, including concerns that while the proposed amendments borrowed provisions from Australian and New Zealand laws that benefit workers, they did not adequately address employer interests.
She says they need to ensure the bill is balanced, affordable, and practical in its implementation, and that there must also be clear enforcement criteria so that labour offices do not apply the law subjectively.
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