Parental Leave for Turkish Fathers

The Women's representation of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) presented its report entitled "Concepts and suggestions to increase women's employment" to Ömer Dinçer, Minister for Labour and Social Labour. Dinçer created "work groups" to research how to realize the suggested projects.

Social Gender Equality Institution

The report aims to establish an "Equality Institution" which is administratively and financially autonomic.

The Social Gender Equality Institution is designed to provide counselling and directing services for opposing unequal opportunities and discrimination in work life before going to court. The Institution will investigate the topic of application and will provide means to find a solution for the applicants via the magistrate before applying to court.

Family and Social Security

The Institution furthermore aims to take the responsibility for child care, senior care or sick-nursing off the women's shoulders and instead have this concept shared between parents, the state and the employers.

The report emphasizes the need for an increased number of social support institutions such as day-care centres. It proposes to cover fees for day-care nursery or child care workers by state benefits and to prevent women from resigning from work for child care with the family and social support insurance.

Parental leave

The report suggests extending parental leave to fathers as well. Currently, only the mother can take 4 months off work for birth. According to the report, either the mother or the father should be able to take parental leave or both of them can share the allowed period of time within the duration of 5 years.

At present, women giving birth are allowed to take a 16 weeks parental leave, 18 weeks for multiple pregnancy. The application of unpaid leave is only recognized for women that gave birth.  Upon request the regular parental leave can be extended as unpaid leave to 6 months for employees and 12 months for civil servants.

Unemployment Insurance

Emphasizing the high percentage of women working off the record, the report recommends improving the conditions regarding benefits from the Unemployment Insurance Fund, increasing unemployment benefits and extending the duration of payment. (İP/VK)