Photo/Illutration Chiharu Minami, right, an assembly member of Shinto village in Gunma Prefecture, holds her first daughter in March 2019. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

MAEBASHI--Lawmakers of a village assembly in Gunma Prefecture will soon be freed of their worries about finding nursing and child care services for their babies while at work, making the council members outliers in Japan.

A steering committee in the village of Shinto is submitting a proposal to revise the assembly meeting rules to make things easier for lawmakers returning from maternity leave as of Dec. 1.

Six members of the committee unanimously agreed to submit the proposal, which would establish a “nursing time” under the procedural rules. That would allow an assembly member raising a child below the age of 1 to request nursing time during a meeting for maternal duties such as breastfeeding.

Based on the Labor Standards Law, the proposal seeks to allow lawmakers to request the nursing period twice a day, lasting at least 30 minutes each time. Male assembly members would also be able to request nursing time.

The village assembly has 12 seats. The proposal is expected to pass.

It is rare for a municipal assembly in Japan to specifically set aside a “nursing time” rule.

The effort comes after Chiharu Minami, 41, who chairs the steering committee, gave birth to her second child in August. Another assemblywoman gave birth in September.

Four of the village assembly members are women.

This is not the first time the village has blazed a trail in Japan when it comes to maternity policy for lawmakers.

Before anywhere else in the country, the village assembly revised its meeting rules in June 2018, when Minami chaired the assembly, so lawmakers could miss an assembly meeting due to childrearing.

If the latest proposal is passed, those lawmakers will be able to participate in an assembly meeting while seeing to their maternal duties. 

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