As per reports, President Arif Alvi has approved the “Daycare Centres Bill 2023”. According to the bill, it is mandatory for both public and private offices in Islamabad to establish a daycare center to make it easy for employees with children.
According to the Daycare Centres Bill, the government must make sure that each department that is hiring about 70 employers must establish a daycare facility.
However, failure in complying with this law even after the initial warning may cause a fine of up to PKR 1 lac. Whereas, repeatedly non-complying behavior may lead to a sentence of 6 months.
Initially, the bill was introduced by Senator Quratulaum Marri in 2018, as she addressed the lack of childcare facilities in organizations. The bill has acknowledged the representation of women in urban and rural areas. Most women serve as a primary or secondary earner of their household.
Hence, in order to deal with the shortcoming, it has been mandated to establish daycare facilities in both government and private firms.
Even though there are many existing daycare facilities but they lack services or are not affordable for everyone. Whereas, in some of the daycares, abusive practices have also been reported.
The government is taking action to take care of these issues and the establishment of daycare facilities has been taken seriously by the officials.
The daycare at workplace can surely enhance work-life balance as workplace daycare allows parents to have their children close by, reducing the stress and logistics involved in arranging external childcare. It enables them to spend more time with their children during breaks and lunch hours.
