OUAGADOUGOU (ILO Online) – Salissa works as a market gardener in Loumbila, a small village on the outskirts of Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso.

She has recently had a second child. Just ten days after giving birth, she was already back to work, doing ten hours of gardening a day to be able to feed her family.

“In many developing countries, maternity leave is a luxury enjoyed only by a small minority of salaried women covered by social security. Poverty compels many women in poor countries to work up to their due date and to return immediately after childbirth, at the risk of their health and that of their child”, explains Naomi Cassirer, the author of the new ILO report on Safe Maternity and the World of Work.

But there are also signs of hope. In Burkina Faso, a drive to unionize informal economy workers is set to support new mothers, with plans to help them benefit from paid maternity leave through a newly established Social Providence Fund for Informal Economy Workers (MUPRESSI), designed with the help of the ILO and DANIDA, the Danish development agency, to extend social coverage for health care and occupational diseases.

In Jordan, the ILO worked closely with government, and employers’ and workers’ organizations to provide guidance on the feasibility of a fair and affordable maternity protection system in the country. In Cambodia, where malnutrition, pregnancy discrimination in employment, and lack of workplace breastfeeding provisions undermine the health of mothers and their children, garment factory owners are working with the ILO and its partners to improve maternity protection at work and to undertake education campaigns in the factories to promote healthier pregnancies.

The world of work: an entry point for safe maternity

According to the report, the world of work is a promising entry point for scaling up interventions aimed at improving maternal health and maternity protection – despite the discouraging situation faced by many women around the world who fall outside legal and social protection systems and risk discrimination and dismissal on the basis of pregnancy or maternity.

Discrimination and the effects of potential hazards facing working women during pregnancy and after childbirth can be mitigated by social and legal measures.

The report highlights the need to improve poor working conditions: Chemicals, pesticides, long hours, and heavy work constitute a major threat to the health of pregnant and nursing women.

“We need to raise awareness of the risks and needs of pregnant women at work. Education campaigns through the world of work are promising in this respect”, says Cassirer.

The report also calls for the extension of social health protection to all, to address the financial barriers of health care that currently prevent many women from seeking the obstetric care they need. And it highlights the need to address the global crisis facing the health workforce.

“In many developing countries, the quality of health care suffers as health workers struggle under staff shortages and poor working conditions resulting from rising health care costs, cuts in spending, increased migration, and in some countries, the toll of HIV/AIDS. Investing in decent work for health workers is also an investment in maternal health”, says the ILO expert.

The ILO’s international labour standards provide guidance for national law and practice. The ILO’s Maternity Convention, 2000 (No. 183) sets out the basic requirements of maternity protection at work, including the right to a period of leave before and after childbirth, cash and medical benefits, health protection at work, entitlements to breastfeeding breaks, and employment protection and non-discrimination.

While 62 countries have ratified at least one of the three maternity protection Conventions, 166 of the ILO’s 181 member States studied have in place some legislative provisions for maternity protection, the study says. Nearly half of them provided maternity leave of at least 14 weeks, while just 36 per cent reached the standard of Convention No.183 by providing at least two-thirds of earnings during leave. Much more needs to be done to bridge the principles of the Convention with deeds.

The reports also highlights several other areas of ILO activities, including the fight against HIV/AIDS through the workplace, that have potential to contribute to broader efforts toward safe pregnancy, including to the target of the UN’s Millennium Development Goal of reducing maternal deaths by 75 per cent by 2015.

“Ensuring that work does not threaten maternal health and that maternity does not threaten women’s economic security, bringing social health protection to all who have none, and finding effective international and national responses to the health workforce crisis – these are fundamental investments in the lives and health of women and their children.”, concludes Assane Diop, ILO Executive Director, Social Protection Sector.

Note 1 – Safe Maternity and the World of Work, International Labour Office, Geneva, 2007, to be presented at the Women Deliver Conference in London, October 18-20, 2007, which will bring together global leaders and delegates from 75 countries to focus on strategies to further the Millennium Development Goals of curbing preventable pregnancy-related deaths of mothers and newborns. Contact information: Naomi Cassirer, Senior Technical Officer, Conditions of Work and Employment Programme, ILO, Tel: 4122/799-6717, cassirer@ilo.org