THE NEED
Pregnancy discrimination is a significant problem in Hong Kong. A 2016 report by the Equal Opportunities Commission identified that 1 in 5 mothers employed in SMEs experienced pregnancy discrimination at work, during maternity leave or in the first year after giving birth.
We’ve seen these legal problems ourselves, having supported over 150 disadvantaged women to address and solve their too-often avoidable employment and pregnancy discrimination cases.
Due to lack of information about their maternity rights and language barriers, working pregnant women might face discrimination in relation to their employment.
Ultimately, we want to see the number of pregnancy-related discrimination cases being reported to the EOC, as well as the cases we deal with at Equal Justice, diminish significantly and our hope is that this platform will help achieve that mission.
THE JOURNEY
We saw an opportunity to use ai and digital tools to scale how we addressed workplace pregnancy discrimination at systemic, sustainable and preventative levels.
Our female led and staffed digital innovation team developed 在職孕婦 Pregnant at Work, an online, multi-lingual, legal information maternity portal that provides clear, factual, people-centered information about statutory maternity rights and duties.
None of us had never done anything like this before and our own, gender diverse, digital innovation and ai learning curve was steep.
The 在職孕婦 Pregnant at Work portal contains tools and templates, such as a calculator to estimate any statutory maternity leave pay and a downloadable, personalised ‘Notice of Pregnancy’ to activate employment maternity protections.
It took about a year to build, draft and check content, translate, user test and then launch
We were delighted and very grateful to receive partial funding from the Equal Opportunities Commission here to take the portal to market, as well as for a significant discount on the AI costs from Checkbox - and for law firm Linklaters’ free legal advice.
THE IMPACT
We’ve supported over 150 disadvantaged women to address and solve their too-often avoidable employment and pregnancy discrimination cases.
在職孕婦 Pregnant at Work is working. Since launch, 在職孕婦 Pregnant at Work has been accessed by 1,300 people; our promotional materials have been viewed over 27,000 times.
In just a few clicks, 在職孕婦 Pregnant at Work equips pregnant employees, and employers, with the legal and practical information they need to help them anticipate, prevent and solve their pregnancy and maternity related problems, and by doing so, reduce hardship and, for many, pregnancy poverty.
The user data generated from the portal will inform trends and actions to be taken to further close the information gap in relation to pregnancy, maternity, paternity, breastfeeding and return to work.