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HUNDREDS of women dressed as bandage-wrapped mummies will march today in cities across Britain to demand better rights for new mothers who are facing rising discrimination in the workplace.
Protest organisers Pregnant Then Screwed, which provides an online platform for new mums to anonymously share their discrimination stories, say that employers are allowed to force out working mothers thanks to archaic legislation.
Findings by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) suggest that as many as 54,000 women are forced out of their jobs after returning from maternity leave and 390,000 experience negative or potentially discriminatory treatment at work each year — twice as many as a decade ago.
The new Employment Rights Act is a step forward, but restoring collective bargaining and union power remains essential to tackling insecurity, outsourcing and low pay, says PAUL WHITEHOUSE
As peers prepare to debate reform of the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act, Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi leads a bid to end the criminalisation of women who end pregnancies at home. LYNNE WALSH reports
Maggie Bowden was a trailblazing campaigning lawyer at Birnberg and Thompsons, women’s organiser of the Communist Party, and general secretary of Liberation
