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ARCHIVED - Spanish Supreme Court refuses to grant single mothers double maternity leave
Single mums in Spain had asked the courts to allow them to take both maternity and paternity leave
It’s a disappointing outcome for many women in Spain but the Supreme Court has definitively rejected the request that single-parent families be allowed to take both maternity and paternity leave from work when there is a new baby in the home. Lawyers had argued that mothers raising their children alone should receive double the benefit, but the sentence released on Wednesday March 8 has upheld the current legislation.
The judge was very clear that the Social Security Benefits Regime is a matter of national law and not one that can be altered in the courts.
The Supreme Court spokesperson insisted that “it is up to the legislator to weigh the different interests at stake (joint responsibility for child care, interest of the minor, interest of the parent) and decide on the most convenient solution.”
But the reason the conflict has come before the Supreme Court in the first place is that a handful of judges in Spain have already granted longer leave for single mothers, extending the maternity benefit from 16 to 26 or even 32 weeks in some cases. It was argued that these rulings aimed to avoid discriminating against children who don’t grow up in two-parent homes.
In Spain today, around 10% of households are single-parent families (in the UK 15.4% of households are single-parent families) and this figure has been growing exponentially since 2016. Where homes have only one parent, they are mothers in 80% of the cases.
Unsurprisingly, groups representing single mothers across Spain are up in arms over the decision, which they say implies that some children don’t have the same rights as other babies from two-parent families.
Miriam Tormo, president of the Association of Single Mothers by Choice (AMSPE), was “deeply” disappointed by the ruling: “This is another lost opportunity to guarantee fairness and equal treatment for boys and girls regardless of their family structure, as well as to advance in the legal recognition of our family model and in the elimination of the discrimination we endure.”
Image: Freepik
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