Paternity Leave for Fathers Offers Opportunity to Bond with Newborns
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Jakarta – The Indonesian Ministry of Women's Empowerment and Child Protection is encouraging paternity leave for men after the birth of their child.
"As long as it is for the best interests of children, it is possible to be realized," the ministry's deputy for special protection for children, Nahar, said on Friday as quoted from Antara site.
According to Nahar, the proposal to provide paternity leave is important because it aims to help parents form a close bond with their newborns.
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Paternity leave could also allow women who have just given birth to get full assistance from their husbands in taking care of their child, he said.
Meanwhile, the ministry's assistant deputy for the formulation of special protection for children, Muhammad Ihsan, said that the challenge to granting paternity leave is ensuring that the leave period is used as intended.
"What is difficult is ensuring and monitoring that the husband actually goes on leave according to what is stipulated. Do not let them take leave, but misuse it for other activities," he added.
Ihsan conveyed that the mechanism for monitoring paternity leave will need to be clear and firm so that the aim of paternity leave, namely to maximize the role of the husband when his wife gives birth, can be achieved.
Earlier, State Apparatus and Bureaucratic Reform Minister Abdullah Azwar Anas said that the government will provide paternity leave to male civil servants so they can accompany their spouses during childbirth.
This is one of the provisions of the Draft Government Regulation on State Civil Servant Management as the implementing regulation for Law Number 20 of 2023 concerning State Civil Servants. The draft regulation is targeted to be completed by April 2024.
"The government will grant leave rights to husbands whose wives give birth or miscarry," Anas informed in a statement issued by his ministry here on Wednesday (March 13, 2024).
