Most employers neglect women's rights: NGO

Eva C. Komandjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A large percentage of firms in large cities across the country are denying women their legal rights in the workplace, a survey by the Women's Journal Foundation (YJP) has found.

The survey, released during a women's workers workshop on Wednesday, revealed that although prevailing laws require companies to grant a three-month maternity leave as well as regular menstruation leave to women, many companies have not been abiding by the law.

According to the survey, the offending employers discourage women from taking the full three months off.

Munawaroh, a worker at a garment factory in Bandung, West Java, said on Wednesday that at her company, where almost 90 percent of the workers are women, pregnant workers are told to take maternity leave for two months at the maximum and get extra money as compensation for the third month.

The survey also revealed that in many cases, pregnant women have been required to take their maternity leave for three consecutive months after giving birth.

"So, the pregnant workers remain at work for the full nine months of their pregnancies, which can be dangerous to their health and of their unborn babies," the report said.

Existing laws allow for one-and-a-half months before they are due and an equal amount of time after they give birth.

The survey also shows that there are many non-permanent workers whose contracts are annulled when they are seven or eight months pregnant, presumably so companies will not have to provide paid maternity leave.

In addition to the maternity leave issue, most companies are also lax about granting time off for menstruating workers.

According to Law No. 13/2003, a company is required to grant two days of paid menstruation leave to all women workers each month.

Of the 10 companies surveyed in Jakarta, Tangerang, Bandung and Solo, only one is abiding by the menstruation leave regulation appropriately.

Seven other companies stated that they would grant the two days only if the worker actually felt too ill to work. However, in such cases, the woman must be examined by her supervisor before the leave is granted.

"In most cases, a company usually persuades workers not to take time off by offering them a certain amount of money as compensation," said Eko Bambang Subiyantoro, the workshop coordinator.

He added that some companies just sent women to medical clinics where they would be given pain medication and told to resume work.

Head of Human Resources at PT. Benoli Inti Karya, Sunaryo, confirmed the report by saying that at his company there were checks on women workers to determine whether they were menstruating.

"We do the checks because there are many cases where women tend to abuse their menstruation leave by taking it near a weekend in order to have a longer holiday," said Sunaryo.

He added that only 5 percent of women workers at his company took regular menstruation leave, the rest were satisfied with the compensation money.

Sunaryo added that menstruation leave was not an issue anymore because modern pain medication was now available, and they could work normally.

Besides pregnancy and menstruation leave in the survey, other factors such as sexual harassment and other gender issues are still neglected by several companies employing women workers in the country.