Mothers Protest New Law to Decrease Benefits during Maternity Leave

Today, in front of the government building, a protest was organized against a law violating the rights of young working mothers.

The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs foresees implementing changes to laws related to temporary disability benefits and state benefits and to lower benefits for working mothers in order to increase benefits for unemployed mothers.

The demographic of today’s protest were mostly young women, who were concerned about the new law. According to them, the changes are an injustice toward working women, because it forces the mother to go back to work earlier rather than stay longer to provide essential care for their child. The protesters think that it is important to help unemployed mothers, but that should be done through other financial avenues, for example, by increasing the luxury tax. The protesters stated that if there was not enough money in the state budget for helping working mothers, then they should not have doubled the parliamentarians' salaries.

Yesterday, a group of the protesters were invited to meet with representatives of Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. Tatevik Aghabekyan, from the Women’s Resource Center, told Epress.am that the meeting was not successful, and that they left the discussion before it finished. “Whatever we suggested or were against, they replied that [the new law] was the best option. Basically, they had nothing to discuss or concede,” said Aghabekyan.  

The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs spokesperson, Anush Danielyan, told Epress.am that the Ministry is open to suggestions and that yesterday, they did not only listen to the women but also took notes, in which many of their suggestions did not relate to their Ministry, for example, the increasing of the luxury tax.

Danielyan suggested to discuss the bill with journalists before taking it to the National Assembly on Monday for discussions.