Dhaka: Mothers and children around the world need more social protection, said the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

As several countries around the world is celebrating Mother's Day on Sunday, two new ILO studies point to the urgent need to increase social protection for mothers and children. Both studies include detailed national data on maternity protection and child and family benefits for 188 countries surveyed, including Bangladesh.

‘The lack of access to social protection is still a reality for a large number of mothers and children worldwide’, the ILO studies said.

One of the studies on social protection for maternity showed that only 36 percent of employed women are legally entitled to cash benefits during their maternity leave. In practice, however, maternity leave legislation is not implemented effectively, so only 28 per cent of working women are covered in case of maternity.

The other study on social protection for children also paints a worrying picture. It shows that while there has been an explosion of small cash transfer schemes in recent years, there is also a considerable gap with regard to the availability of adequate child and family benefits.  

According to the study, 108 countries have specific child and family benefit programmes rooted in legislation, but they often cover small groups.

In case of Bangladesh, the ILO studies, however, see improving trend in maternity protection measures, with expanding maternity coverage to categories of women who were previously unprotected, such as women in the informal economy.

The study also mentioned that Bangladesh introduced or extended non-contributory maternity benefits to women workers in the informal economy or poor women in general.  

Noncontributory benefits are usually not directly associated with an interruption of employment in the form of maternity leave, but pursue a broader objective of providing pregnant women and new mothers with a predictable cash benefit during the final stages of their pregnancy and after childbirth.