Members of Parliament have passed a bill that will require employers in Kenya to set up breastfeeding stations in their offices.
The newly approved proposal contained in the Health Bill 2015, stipulates that employers will also have to put up all the necessary equipment to ensure lactating mothers are well accommodated.
“All employers shall in the workplace establish lactation stations, which shall be adequately provided with necessary equipment and facilities including handwashing equipment, refrigerators or appropriate cooling facilities, electrical outlets for breast pumps, a small table,” the bill reads in part.
Employers have been instructed not to place the stations in rest rooms and also provide comfortable seats for the mothers.
According to the proposal, bosses are to give the nursing employees extra time apart from their normal lunch hour to go into the stations.
The Bill goes hand in hand with the Ministry of Health's effort to encourage mothers to breastfeed their young ones regularly for atleast six months.
Employed mothers haveoften found themselves in a hard position juggling between work and attending to their young ones, forcing them to nurse their babies fewer times and for some, once a day.
