Ensuring equal treatment of workers with family responsibilities

Article 27 of the European Social Charter (Revised) (Strasbourg 1996) provides: With a view to ensuring the exercise of the right to equality of opportunity and treatment for men and women workers with family responsibilities and between such workers and other workers, the Parties undertake: 1) to take appropriate measures: a) to enable workers with family responsibilities to enter and remain in employment, as well as to re-enter employment after an absence due to those responsibilities, including measures in the field of vocational guidance and training; b) to take account of their needs in terms of conditions of employment and social security; c) to develop or promote services, public or private, in particular child daycare services and other childcare arrangements; 2) to provide a possibility for either parent to obtain, during a period after maternity leave, parental leave to take care of a child, the duration and conditions of which should be determined by national legislation, collective agreements or practice; 3) to ensure that family responsibilities shall not, as such, constitute a valid reason for termination of employment.