Every few years, Nepal passes a law that sounds like a victory for women. Then a woman in a private office is told to be back at her desk within a month, and she does, not because the law says so but because she cannot afford to lose her job by refusing.
The government has now registered the Safe Motherhood and Reproductive Health Rights (First Amendment) Bill, 2026. It would extend paid maternity leave from 98 days to at least six months for women in government, non-governmental and private organisations, and give fathers up to 42 days of paid maternity-care leave. It sounds like progress. Before we agree, one question needs an answer.
How many women can claim the 98 days they already have?
The leave that exists on paper
A new bill with stronger provisions can be reassuring. The country is moving forward, and the intention is good, so why scrutinise the details? Because intention has never enforced anything, and the record on implementing the laws already in place remains poor.
Section 45 of the Labour Act, 2017, grants pregnant employees 14 weeks of maternity leave, but only 60 days are fully paid. The Safe Motherhood and Reproductive Health Rights Act, 2018, provides for 98 days of paid maternity leave. The two laws differ on what constitutes paid leave, leaving room for employers to follow whichever provision they find more convenient. FWLD’s 2025 CEDAW Shadow Report highlighted this gap and called for the effective implementation of fully paid maternity leave.
In 2020, The Kathmandu Post reported FWLD’s finding that nearly 70 per cent of organisations, most of them private, provided either no maternity leave or only one to two months. Parliament’s Women and Social Committee has also noted that while the Act was being implemented in government offices, it had yet to reach the private sector and rural areas. Several of these figures are now years old. A state serious about enforcement would have produced more recent data.
The numbers obscure a simpler reality. A woman denied maternity leave can, in theory, file a complaint. In practice, few can afford to risk their jobs by doing so. The Kathmandu Post reported the case of an employee who resigned at seven months of pregnancy because her company had no maternity leave policy. It also reported that a teacher was made to attend school while in labour, despite the National Women Commission directing her principal to grant her leave. A longer entitlement means little to a woman who cannot enforce even the existing one.
Who pays?
Coverage of the bill talks mostly about how long the leave will be and very little about what it costs. Right now the employer pays the 60 days of full pay. The Contribution-Based Social Security Act, 2017 created the Social Security Fund, which runs a medical, health and maternity protection scheme, and reporting on the leave rules says the Fund pays the remainder of the 98 days for enrolled workers. Those benefits depend on enrolment and contribution history, so a woman outside the scheme gets nothing from it.
Reporting on the bill does not say whether six months would be paid by the Fund, the treasury, employers or some mix. The health minister has said the bill is also meant to encourage population growth as the growth rate falls. If the state sets a demographic goal, why should a small private employer pay for it alone?
Small businesses will feel it most. One absence can stall the work, and a temporary replacement means paying a second salary. A social insurance scheme or a pooled maternity benefit fund could spread that cost across employers, workers and the state. The exact model needs careful design. The principle needs to be settled before the bill passes: the cost of motherhood must never become a reason to keep women out of jobs.
The question of hiring
Picture an employer choosing between two equally qualified candidates. One is a man. The other is a woman who might take six months of paid leave. If most of the cost of that leave lands on the employer, she starts to look like a risk.
2005 study found that some employers worried about hiring women who might become pregnant, preferred unmarried women so they would not have to provide maternity facilities, and called maternity leave a burden on the enterprise. That was the workplace of 2005, but the incentive has not gone away. This kind of discrimination rarely announces itself. It shows up in who gets an interview, in salary talks, in promotions and in which tasks a woman is trusted with.
Some questions need answers before the law takes effect. Could a woman be asked about marriage, pregnancy or plans for children in an interview? Could an employer see a prospective mother as a future expense instead of a qualified candidate? Could women feel pressured to skip leave they are legally entitled to? Each of these needs a legal remedy a woman can use without risking her job.
Fathers and the promise of shared parenting
The proposal to raise paternity-care leave from 15 days to up to 42 days deserves credit. It challenges the old assumption that childcare belongs to women. A woman gives birth, but raising the child is not her job alone.
A statutory entitlement only counts if men use it. The same Kathmandu Post report quoted a member of the 2018 drafting process who said 15 days was enough because most men do not help with household work. If employers think the same way, a man who asks for six weeks may be seen as uncommitted, and many will quietly not ask. When only mothers take leave, the hiring penalty stays where it is.
The design of the father’s leave can narrow that gap. If fathers get the same pay protection and the same shield against retaliation as mothers, and the cost of their leave is also pooled, hiring a man stops being the cheaper choice. That means the 42 days must be funded and enforced as seriously as the six months, and employers must treat a father’s absence as ordinary.
What the law has to protect
Article 38(2) of the Constitution guarantees every woman the right to safe motherhood and reproductive health. That right means more than permission to stay away from work. It needs institutions that make taking the leave affordable and safe for her job.
The amendment needs four additions. First, protection against discrimination in recruitment, promotion, pay and termination on grounds of pregnancy, leave or caregiving, with a complaint process a woman can use without fear of losing her post. Second, a financing model that shares the cost among the state, employers and a social security fund, so no single employer carries it alone. Third, protection on return: a woman should come back to the position, duties and prospects she left. Fourth, a way to reach women outside formal employment, who know the least and are covered the least.
Six months of leave means little if the job is gone at the end of it. Nepal should judge this bill by what happens to the woman who comes back: whether she keeps her place, whether her career continues, and whether she can claim her right without paying for it. The aim is a law that lets her be a mother and a professional at once.
