A socio-legal study on the protection of working mothers in Malaysia

Abstract

The number of working mothers has been increasing over the years. The issues concerning the rights of working mothers are crucial as researches show that high volume of women who stop working is due to problem related to childcare. The challenges worsen when the children get sick. Even though the issue is serious, there has been significantly few recognitions of the laws that protect the rights of working mothers and so they are not adequately protected under Malaysian laws. In pursuant thereto, this research examines the policies and laws governing working mothers in Malaysia, analyses the strengths and weaknesses of the policies and laws, benchmarks the legal frameworks of other jurisdictions in order to search for best practices practising the legal rights of working mothers and recommends for legal reform of related policies and laws affecting working women in Malaysia. This research is done based on doctrinal, quantitative and qualitative examination of governing statutes, reported cases, interviews, surveys and data obtained from the respective ministries and agencies. The issues are also examined from the Islamic perspective based on Qur’an, Sunnah, Islamic history and views of Muslim jurists. For the benchmarking analysis, the research also provides references to the laws and policies in Singapore, the United Kingdom, Australia and Maldives. The research finds that Malaysia has extensive policies on women empowerment that encourages women’s participation in the labour force and the laws governing working mothers in Malaysia are improving over the years. The research also discovers the best practices on the issues through the benchmarked jurisdictions that can be referred for legal reform in Malaysia. Hence, reforming the existing policies and laws governing working mothers in Malaysia is highly necessary in order to curb the current concerns related to working mothers and to prevent future problems.