As I rang the door bell, Fareeda, Zainab’s daughter, came to open the gate of my mother’s house. She was cuddling an infant in her tiny arms. Whose child is it? I asked Zainab, the cleaning woman as soon as I entered the house. “It’s mine,” came the reply. “When did this happen, Zainab? I didn’t even know you were pregnant!” I thought she never lost weight since her last boy.

“This too is a son — Bilal,” Zainab added to my knowledge, the name of her seventh or probably eighth child. How many days was she off, I asked Ammi. I knew Zainab was away but thought she had gone to her village for a few days. “I only take a week to recover. Never stayed home more that that after childbirth,” she interrupted.

Being a mother is a fulltime job, but their work is not recognised no matter how exhausting or taxing it may be. Working women are faced with double jeopardy, the challenge of combining dual social roles — home and work.

According to the UN maternity and paternity leave rules, a staff member, entitled to maternity leave for a total period of 16 weeks shall receive it with full pay. The pre-delivery leave shall commence six weeks prior to the anticipated date of birth.

“Up to two years of age your child gets to travel with you wherever you go with ticket and 10 per cent of your daily allowance paid by the company. So if you need to take a caretaker with you, you can. I find that very child-friendly,” says Uzma Aftab, programme monitoring officer working for the United Nations in Islamabad. Aftab has availed two maternity leaves in her career, her elder one now five while the younger one is 18 months old.

However, what Aftab finds difficult is the back-to-work period as the 16 weeks are over. According to policy, ‘the mother can leave the office twice a day for 30 minutes to feed the baby’. Aftab finds these laws very unrealistic, ‘made by someone who has neither delivered babies nor breastfed them’. Whether in Islamabad, Karachi or New York, she feels it is “next to impossible for anyone to leave office, go home, breastfeed and return to work within 30 minutes.” She suggests that there should be months off for a mother after delivery and that there should be a policy to keep your child in office space for up to two years, which is what certain corporate organisations provide.

“We want to promote exclusive breastfeeding which means that the baby should receive breast milk and no other fluids such as water, juices, teas or formula, etc. Breastfeeding should continue until two years of age.” Says Sarita Neupane, Nutrition Specialist, Unicef Pakistan.

A great advocate of breast feeding, Neupane endorses Aftab’s views. “Even the period after six months up to two years is very critical when a child starts complimentary feeding. It’s very important for a mother to supervise quality, quantity and frequency of the child’s diet.”

Neupane suggests that there should be provision to bring the baby to office for as long as the mother wants. “If not office, due to security reasons, there should be rented space at walking distance where the baby can be kept.”

According to the Constitution of Pakistan, ‘maternity leave is admissible to a female civil servant on full pay for up to three months, (six weeks before and six weeks after delivery) outside the leave account. Such leave may not be granted for more than three times in the career of a civil servant.’

Mother of a 10-month-old child, Sobia Mazhar has availed three maternity leaves during her ten year teaching career. “It’s always 45 days before delivery and 45 days after delivery.” A lecturer at Islamabad College for Girls, Mazhar says, “with no domestic help, all my three children have accompanied me to college — thanks to the day care facility on the college premises.” Her two older children, seven and four, got promoted to pre-nursery after spending some two years at the day care, now availed by her youngest.

“My organisation allowed six months of maternity leave, three months with full pay and three with half pay, while the men are also entitled to three weeks of paid paternity leave. However, my own experience was quite unique and different, as I had ‘adopted’ a newborn baby,” says Natasha Kamal, Communications Specialist working with Plan International.

When Kamal first applied for maternity leave she was informed that for an adopted child the leave was for only 10 days (keeping in view, that most adopted children were older in age). However, she challenged this rule, arguing that “even though I had not given birth to the child, the leave is basically given to facilitate and protect the baby. So even if the baby was adopted, the needs of the baby remained the same!”

After serious deliberations, ground-breaking decisions were made and a new policy was formulated by the organisation. Now whenever a staff member adopts a baby under one month, they will be granted months of paid maternity leave. “Very few organisations would have been that accommodating,” she says with a sense of achievement.

Kamal believes that we still have a long way to go to support the women workforce of Pakistan. She suggests all offices to have ‘baby-friendly’ areas, where working mothers are able to bring and leave their children to care. “With the changing face of the family, majority of women do not enjoy the benefits of a joint family system or support. If this is done, it will make it easier for a lot of women to resume work after giving birth.”

With the belief that a lot more needs to be done, Kamal says, “Culturally we are quite sensitive to mothers in Pakistan, but it has not translated well in the professional arena. Even child-friendly international development organisations do have all the rules and regulations on paper, but whether they are implemented by the local staff is another story altogether. Most would work at getting rid of such staff members than support them as mothers! Most women would also resign, succumbing to the pressure of working full-time as mothers and professionals.”