Existing regulations only mandate maternity for a maximum of three months to female civil servants. - AFP
JAKARTA: Policymakers are mulling over a draft regulation that could give paternity leave to civil servants, a move experts have commended for its potential to encourage fathers’ greater involvement in raising their children.
The Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform Ministry and House of Representatives Commission II, which oversees home affairs, started deliberating last week a draft government regulation (PP) derived from the recently enacted State Civil Service (ASN) Law.
The draft PP was previously criticised for a provision that would allow senior military and police personnel to be appointed as civilian government jobs.
It has again made headlines, this time positively, for a provision that grants paternity leave to civil servants so they can be with their wives during and after childbirth or miscarriage.
“The government is recognising the important role of fathers in supporting their wives during childbirth, including the early phase after a baby is delivered,” Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform Minister Abdullah Azwar Anas said recently.
Azwar said the government had been discussing the provision, including the number of leave days, with lawmakers and other stakeholders.
While the minister did not specify how long male civil servants could take off from work after their child was born, an official at the ministry said separately that the duration of leave could be between seven and 30 days, Tribunnews.com reported.
House Commission II’s Guspardi Gaus, a lawmaker from the National Mandate Party (PAN), said last week that he appreciated the government’s breakthrough in proposing paternity leave.
“This regulation would give legal certainty to [male] civil servants instead of [them] taking days off through unclear [means],” he said.
“This is part of bringing order and ensuring human rights for male employees whose wives are giving birth.”
Existing regulations only mandate maternity for a maximum of three months to female civil servants. No national rules stipulate paternity leave for male civil servants, although an internal regulation at the National Civil Service Agency allows male employees to take leave of up to 30 days to be with their wives after childbirth. - The Jakarta Post/ANN
