Pregnancy discrimination is largely an unspoken issue, and there has been minimal public conversation on this topic. When women become pregnant, they often fear and face discrimination at work. They may be passed over during hiring, denied promotion, demoted, or even terminated. Some move on to another workplace, while some fall out of the workforce.
Through the Workplace Discrimination Survey, we supported Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO) to kick start conversations and uncover the extent of pregnancy discrimination in the workplace, educate women about their redress options, and to lobby policymakers to amend the Employment Act to prohibit gender discrimination in Malaysia. The research insights were seeded out across multi-channels and multi-platforms. Further to that, the #InvisibleWomen Campaign was rolled out featuring an art exhibition displaying multiple stories of workplace discrimination in the form of an art installation. Finally, the #RightsForParents Campaign was mobilised on Parents’ Day to champion enactment of laws that better support and safeguard the rights of parents and parent-to-be in the workplace.
The progressively sustained series of PR campaigns alongside grassroot advocacy and lobbying efforts by WAO eventually resulted in the Parliament approving the Employment (Amendment) Bill 2021 in March 2022, which prohibits termination of female employees who are pregnant or suffering from illness arising out of her pregnancy, extends employees’ maternity leave from 60 to 98 days, enacts a 7-day paid paternity leave for married male employees and allowing staff to apply for flexible working arrangements from their employers.
