KARACHI, Feb 5: Finding proper childcare during the workday has become one of the major issues that forces many working women to give up their careers, even though the number of women in the job market is increasing and a lot of careers are opening up for them.

A majority of women abandon their careers when they have children owing to a lack of family and workplace support. With less than five day care centres in the city and the rise of the nuclear family, the situation has attained serious proportions.

Amina, a mother of two, who is employed at a key post in a private firm and has been working for more than 20 years, talked about how difficult it was for her to balance both her family and work when she had children.

“I used to go home every two hours from work and then return after tending to my children since my in-laws refused to take care of them,” she said. Her two children were entirely her responsibility and since she was not willing to give up her job, looking after both aspects of her life was a Herculean task. “I would often bring them to work and let them play near me until they reached school-going age,” she said. Her husband stayed out of the equation while she had to deal with her in-laws. While Amina managed to continue working, Marium, a journalist, opted for a day care centre for a year and eventually quit her job. “I used to drop my son at the day care centre in the morning and pick him up in the evening,” she said. However, after having two more sons, she left the profession and stayed home for almost 18 years.

Women from lower-income groups, such as Beenish, a housemaid, find life all the more taxing. She works round the clock in both her own home and in others’, while her five young children are her responsibility. Her husband, a helper at a general store in the area, does little to ease her burden. “He comes home quite late. I have nothing to complain about, though I would certainly appreciate it if he could help me in taking care of our children rather than just idling with his friends during his free time,” she told Dawn.

Beenish argued that there is a general concept in society that women have to take care of the children while the men are the breadwinners. “Men have liberty to go out and socialise while women are burdened with so many tasks that at the end of the day, they barely have time for themselves,” she pointed out.

Interestingly enough, however, working women are not the only ones dependent on day care centres. Visiting one of the centres, this reporter spotted a housewife who leaves her child, almost one and a half years old, at the place. “There are no children at home for my son to play with, so we drop him here for two to three hours,” she said. She added that her child not only plays at the centre but also learns the alphabet and other things.

Day care hazards

Psychiatrist Dr Ali Wasif, however, warned against this practice. “Women generally send children who are hyperactive or uncontrollable to day care centres in order to have peace of mind for a while, which is totally unfair to the child,” he said. He believes that it is the parents’ choice to have children, so they should take care of them too.

When it comes to working women, he said “unfortunately, though the day care centres are a compromise on the child’s development, when it comes to working women it is somewhat justifiable due to the socio-economic set-up prevalent here.” But Dr Wasif was highly critical of the day care centres set up in various areas of the city.

“They wrap the child up in a sheet in order to make the infant feel secure and whenever the child cries, they give him/her a feeder or a pacifier, which quietens the child,” he said. He argued that the majority of day care centres do not pay much attention to hygiene and give products to children without sterilising them. Under such circumstances, he suggested, it would be better if organisations were to come up with day care within offices; and if that was not possible, then the mothers should either rely on the family to take care of the child or find someone capable and reliable enough in the area who could manage the job.

Talking about the effects on the child after spending its formative years in day care with no professional to help, he said that “the child either becomes withdrawn or overly aggressive. The infant becomes restless and insecurity about the parents not being with them (separation anxiety) seeps into their personality, which stays and becomes a hurdle in their academic life later on.”

Laying down the law

Though the government raves about its policy for empowering women, hardly any steps have been taken to assure that proper childcare facilities are established to facilitate working women.

Surprisingly enough, the country does have a law for day care requirements but it applies only to women employed in factories. Called the Factories Act, it is applicable to all places registered as factories. Karamat Ali of the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (Piler) explained that “under this law, Section 33Q-2 states that if there are more than 50 female workers employed in a factory, a suitable room should be set up for the children of these women who are under the age of six.”

However, Mr Ali maintained that this room is not referred to as a day care but a “room for children,” and according to the law, the provincial government is supposed to appoint an officer for its supervision.

“But I have never come across such facilities for women working in factories. These facilities may exist at the head offices of certain multinational companies, but not for labourers,” he added. However, he did express the belief that it was time the problem was addressed since “the commercial sector is offering a lot of jobs to women and there is a need for a law for that sector as well.”

He also pointed out that the majority of workers of both genders are hired by contractors and not the factories themselves, so the employers absolve themselves of their responsibility by saying that the contractors are supposed to take care of the workers’ issues and not the factory itself.

Requesting anonymity, an official of the American Business Council of Pakistan, an organisation of US businesses investing in the country, revealed that there is no company or factory whatsoever that offers day care facilitates for the benefit of its female employees.

“There have been one or two instances where workers challenged the employers in court over this issue. But you know how the system works,” he said. “It is believed that even the sub-contracted employees (hired through any employment agency) of the company are entitled to the same rights as others, therefore the absence of day care centres is beyond comprehension,” he added.

Women legislators’ role

The last provincial and national governments had the highest numbers of female legislators ever seen in Pakistan, yet neither was the law regarding day care centres taken up, nor were new measures taken to make sure it was implemented. Gul-i-Farkhanda, a National Assembly member during the previous government, was asked why this issue was never raised in the assembly.

“For one and a half years the opposition preferred to thump benches than join us for legislation. Secondly, I agree that this time the assemblies had many female members but it will take time to introduce things and to run the system smoothly,” she told Dawn.

“Problems are not solved overnight; it takes years. For 56 years, the parliament was a largely male domain and never before was so much work done on women’s issues than during the last six years,” she claimed. However, she believes it will take at least 10 more years for the results to materialise.