Editor, Reference is made to Sunny Ntayombya’s article, “Time with newborn children not an exclusive preserve of women” (The New Times, June 3). Let me first give my warmth gratitude to the Rwanda law rehabilitation team to have foreseen the importance of not only granting our Rwandan sisters a right to a full salary during the three-month maternity leave. I am also assuming that the law grants other three months of working half a day after the expiration of the principal three months to enable a mother go home earlier to breastfeed the baby. Employers never like that but at one time, their wives, daughters or relatives also go through that important phase of our lifetime. It therefore touches all of us. But, on the other hand, I don’t agree with Mr Ntayombya on the issue of paternity leave. Why should the law grant paternity leave to men or baby daddies who are not married to the child’s mother? If ones have agreed and consented to be parents they should legalize. That’s civilization. This particular law should be in conformity with other laws of the land. I assume that Rwanda also has a ‘Marriage Act’ in place. There shouldn’t be conflict between the two laws; if the two contradict one another then the supreme law, the constitution, should prevail. On paternity leave, it seems Mr Ntayombya wants both the mother and the father of the newborn to be accorded the same number of days in circumstantial leave (paternity and maternity leaves). Come on, do you even have an idea how many workers (female) deliver every day in Rwanda? So when they take their maternity leave, hands should equally take off more days than the current four for paternity leave? Can you imagine how many people will be away from their workplaces on each given day? And its overall impact on the economy? Rwanda needs our youthful energy when we still have it. In all the other East African countries (I don’t know the situation in Burundi), paternity leave is three days only. We are lucky we have four. Yulian
