Women lag behind men in employment across the world as their access to jobs is hindered by various factors. One of them is discrimination. Although international conventions guarantee motherhood rights for women in employment, these rights are often ignored by employers. Mothers and expectant women complain about several forms of discrimination solely based on their gender.

Professor Muharrem Kılıç, chair of the Turkish Human Rights and Equality Agency (TIHEK), says it is a global problem. "It includes everything from lack of equal pay to recruitment problems and deprivation of promotions. Especially in the private sector, we witness a prejudiced, discriminating approach towards women from their employers due to their marital status and births," he told Anadolu Agency (AA) on Thursday. "Refusal of employment of female applicants due to pregnancy or imposing pressure on them at the workplace is blatant gender-based discrimination. Unfortunately, employers do not care about their working conditions or their rights like leaves for women who recently gave birth," he said.

Kılıç noted that discrimination deprives women of assurances of a better working life and also deals a blow to the proliferation of families. He said TIHEK received 37 gender discrimination complaints this year from women and two of them were by pregnant women. He noted that the agency was authorized to issue fines to employers in cases of gender-based discrimination. He said they were also inspecting companies for possible discrimination and running a certificate program to score the level of equal rights for women.

Nilay Balaman says she is one of those women whose job application was rejected. Balaman says she applied for a job in a private company in the northern province of Samsun last year. "My application was approved at first and I was invited to work. But when I notified them about my upcoming pregnancy, they decided to reverse their decision. They did not cite pregnancy as the reason for my refusal but told me so when I pressed on. I told them that refusing a job application on the grounds of (prospective employer’s) pregnancy was illegal but they did not care. So, I filed a lawsuit against them," she said. Balaman said she also filed a complaint at TIHEK and says she suffered financial difficulties due to lack of employment until childbirth. "In response to the lawsuit, they claimed they were not aware of my pregnancy but I proved them wrong. They were fined. I will now file another compensation lawsuit for coverage of my financial losses through pregnancy," she said.