Maternity leave for adopting parents . Far from a real equivalence

With the approval of the Cortes (Spanish Parliament), on December 27th last, of the Budget's Law (published in the BOE (Official Bulletin of the Spanish State), #315, December 31st., 1996), the legislation in relation to maternity leave due to adoptive motherhood or fatherhood has been modified. Such a modification specifically means the equalizing of the suspension of the working contract for adoptive and biological motherhood; however, it is an equivalence limited to those cases in which the age of the adopted child is less than 9 months. This means that, according to the present Spanish legislation, maternity leave due to adoptive motherhood/fatherhood rises from eight to sixteen weeks (as with the case of biological motherhood) when the child is under nine months of age. For adopted children over nine months and under five years, the legislation has not been modified, maternity leave being, in these cases, of six weeks. In the case of the adoption of a child over five years of age, neither the old legislation, nor the new one, take into account any kind of maternity leave for the parents.

In the discussion period of this law, the F.E.N.D.A. (Federación Española de Entidades en Defensa de la Adopción, Spanish Federation of Organisms for the Defense of the Adoption) made a statement in which it formulated the following issues which, finally, have not been taken into account:

-Full and not partial equalizing of the length of the biological and adoptive maternity leave and regardless of the age of the adopted child.

-Optional distribution between the father and the mother of the maternity leave due to adoptive motherhood.

-The existence of a legal working coverage for the worker. This coverage should mean the possibility to take non-paid leave of absence to be able to travel to the country of origin of the child to be adopted and thus be able to conclude the procedure of adoption without the risk of losing the right to economic remuneration which is provided by the maternity leave, since working leaves (which means that the worker no longer pays the tax contribution) imply the risk of losing this right.