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When New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern returns to parliament after becoming the second elected leader in the world to have a baby in power, her daughter will be allowed to cuddle during debates and swim in the pool . a critical mass of women leaders whose needs of children are met is crucial to ensure that more women run for office, since women's representation has remained stubbornly less than half in most legislatures. Progress is uneven despite images of parliamentarians feeding their babies in Australia, and Canada has become viral on social media in recent years.
Many legislatures, including the British House of Commons, do not allow babies, which is a challenge for all nursing mothers in legislators. with some breaks. In November, for example, Japanese lawmaker Yuka Ogata was ordered to leave a town hall after taking her son for seven months to highlight the difficulties of juggling a career and children.
Political parties around the world are struggling with the repercussions of excluding babies from legislatures, particularly when the presence of a parent is crucial to ensuring the desired outcome of a vote. For example, in April, a last-minute historic change to the rules of the US Senate allowed Senator Tammy Duckworth to bring her daughter, Maile, against President Donald Trump's presidential candidate. space agency of NASA
. In New Zealand, men are also allowed to bring their children to the debate room. Some parliaments are considering alternatives to the Swedish Riksdag, which offers formal parental leave, including for men, while the UK House of Commons is discussing proxy voting arrangements to help new parents. In New Zealand, representatives can use a daycare and rooms with changing tables and toys, and the speaker also opened the pool to children, in addition to adding high chairs in the cafe Parliament and order a playground on his lawn. already allowed mothers to bring babies into the debate room to feed them, but the president has expanded this rule to allow young children to be present at all times to bond with their parents. Ardern, who discovered that she was unexpectedly pregnant a few days before becoming Prime Minister in October, gave birth to her first child, Neve Te Aroha, on June 21st.
She was the first pregnant woman elected to do so since the Pakistani Benazir Bhutto in 1990.
Ardern has already received some advice from the first MP Willow Jean Prime, who arrived at the New Zealand Parliament in September with her seven-week-old daughter, Heeni
. We certainly tested every element of this place and if it was as child and family as possible, "Prime told Reuters in his office, equipped with a sleeping bag and a reserve of layers for swimming.
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