"
No more taboo, stigma, suffering in silence
," wrote Irene Montero, Spain's Minister for Equality, on Twitter last December
.
"Today we are the first country in Europe to recognize menstrual health rights
."
She hailed with these words the adoption of a text creating a "menstrual leave" for women suffering from painful periods in the Congress of Deputies (lower house of the bicameral Spanish Parliament), by 190 votes against 154. This week, it is the Spanish senators who are preparing to vote on this measure, between this Tuesday 7 and Thursday 9 February.
A controversial bill
The authorization justifying the absence of certain women for this specific reason must be provided by the attending physician and presented directly to the company.
The leave will be covered from the first day by Social Security, reports the Spanish daily
El País
.
If the minister had specified on television that there “
would be no time limit
” for this leave, the bill seems to give more details.
A preliminary version released by the media last spring mentioned a three-day leave that could be increased to five in the event of acute symptoms.
For the Spanish government, the victory would be great.
This law would make it possible to “
break a taboo
” in Europe and would make Spain an avant-garde country.
It would place the country “
at the forefront of its European partners
”, rejoiced the journalist María G. Zornoza on the
Público news site
.
Read alsoIn Madrid, the Spanish right mobilizes tens of thousands of demonstrators against the Sanchez government
However, this measure is not unanimous.
Some political figures, of socialist movement, see it as a new opportunity to stigmatize women in hiring.
Marta González Vázquez, MP for the People's Party, warned of the possible "
negative consequences on the labor market
" for these women.
“
You have to be careful with this type of decision
,” lamented Cristina Antoñanzas, deputy general secretary of the UGT (Spanish union).
In France, the collective “Osons le féminisme” points to another difficulty.
He fears that medical secrecy will no longer be respected: "
It means that the employer will know the reasons for your absence, whereas with sick leave, the secret is kept
", can we read on
France 3
.
Precedents in Asia
Several examples abroad illustrate the limits of such a measure.
If this is a first in Europe, menstrual leave already exists in several regions of the world.
Among the Asian countries, there is in particular Japan, which established it in 1947. It is enshrined as a right in article 68 of the Labor Code and must benefit employees whose periods are extremely painful.
And yet, only 0.9% of women used this menstrual leave in 2017, according to statistics from the Japanese Ministry of Labor and Health published in 2020,
France Info
reports .
In 1965, this figure reached 26% of women.
Many women therefore seem to have abandoned it.
We find the same phenomenon in South Korea, where the leave has existed since 1950. In 2013, nearly 23.6% of women used this leave compared to only 19.7% in 2017.
Why these declines?
Because, in both countries, if the companies cannot prevent the employee from taking menstrual leave, they are however not obliged to finance it... And Japan like South Korea are among the countries where the pay inequality between men and women is the largest, reports the OECD.
Repeated absences could further widen the already significant gap between the two sexes.
In 1948, it was Indonesia that granted women two days of menstrual leave per month.
In 2003, the government backpedaled and offered companies the right not to finance them.
Finally, on the Taiwan side, menstrual leave benefits from the same advantages as traditional sick leave: it is compulsorily reimbursed.
Taiwanese women are however limited in the number of days to pose in the year: they are entitled to one day per month but only three days per year, reports
TV5 Monde
.
“Feminist conquests”
The progressive Spanish government will therefore have to deal with companies so that women can really take this leave without suffering from it.
The bill also contains other key measures, such as allowing minors aged 16 and 17 to have an abortion without the authorization of legal representatives.
It also provides for the free distribution of contraceptives, menstrual hygiene products in high schools and the strengthening of sex education at school.
“
This legislature is a legislature of feminist conquests,
” rejoiced the Spanish Minister for Equality, referring to previous majority victories.
On December 22, the Spanish Congress had indeed voted in first reading a law authorizing gender self-determination from the age of 16.
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