Hi,

Following on from some very broad opinion on breastfeeding, I would like to know if anyone can specifically point me to law or regulations which protect a mother's right to breastfeed in public. I assume they exist, as I understand Switzerland has fairly sophisticated regulations regarding breastfeeding breaks at work, so surely they have a 'protection' law for women and children.

Am not interested in opinion, only references to law or which government department handles these things - thanks!

I have done a bit of an internet search but nothing came up in English...

I would be surprised if there is a law about the right to breast-feed in public actually. It's not very Swiss with laws like that. They tend to have more general laws stating e.g. that "improper behavior" is not allowed and then it is up to tradition and interpretation of the courts to decided what is improper.

Also the laws protecting women at work are a misch-masch of different laws put together. The Mutterschaftsurlaub that came a couple of years ago made it a bit better but there are still quite a few laws defining different parts of the issue that have to be looked at as a whole.

http://www.englishforum.ch/swiss-pol...t-feeding.html and another thread might give some viewpoints.

It's not illegal as far as I know.

Thanks Lob,

I'd already perused both those and not found any specific 'legal' sort of references, just hearsay and personal opinions.

Prior to a couple of years ago in Australia it fell generally under anti-discrimination...then we got specific laws...

well I've tagged them so they're easier to find - and I wish you well on your quest

Hi,

I did various Google searches on "Stillen in der Öffentlichkeit" and did not come up with anything concrete - apart from a couple of articles (and I can't be fagged to post the links) about the proposed (?) introduction of laws in the UK to guarantee a mother's right to breastfeed in public places without being harassed; and that Switzerland is behind in this regard. I could not find anything stating whether or not BF in public in Switzerland is actually legal or not - I had a good look around admin.ch.

What is guaranteed in Swiss law - I will try to find some links and post later - is your rights as a mother in the workplace to have time off in the working day to breastfeed and / or to express; and that such time counts as working time.

Cheers,
Nick

If it helps, from a mum who has "been there", I fed my son in public in restaurants, etc., and never got so much as a second glance. No nasty comments, no ogling blokes, nobody telling me to leave the premises.

Wasn't much of an event, however, and there were baggy clothes and muslin squares covering most of the action so unless a woman is going to rip off her blouse and run three laps of the restaurant first shouting "get a load of these puppies, boys!" I don't think anyone is going to object.

I think most women know how to feed discretely and there is probably more of it going on than you know, you just don't immediately notice it.

My sister, however, was feeding her daughter in Marks and Spencer in the UK and was told by an old lady to cover herself up and stop making such a show.

I would say that in Switzerland the right to breastfeed is guaranteed indirectly through article 11 of the Constitution, which states that 'children and adolescents have the right to special protection of the personal integrity and to promotion of their development', because this article reaffirms the relevant provisions in the international law on the right to nutrition, notably the Convention on the Rights of the Child (which came into force in 1990), in which two articles address this issue.

Article 24 of the Convention says that "States Parties recognize the right of the child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health . . .(paragraph 1)" and shall take appropriate measures "to combat disease and malnutrition . . . . through the provision of adequate nutritious foods, clean drinking water, and health care (paragraph 2c).” Article 24 also says that States Parties shall take appropriate measures . . . “to ensure that all segments of society, in particular parents and children, are informed, have access to education and are supported in the use of basic knowledge of child health and nutrition [and] the advantages of breastfeeding . . . .“ Article 27 says that States Parties "shall in case of need provide material assistance and support programmes, particularly with regard to nutrition, clothing, and housing (paragraph e)."

Breastfeeding would fall under the provisions of the articles above becuase it is a form of nutrition, but it can also be regarded as a kind of health service because of the fact that it reduces the risk of a broad variety of diseases.

In relation to breastfeeding, the state of course cannot fulfill the right directly, but it can respect, protect, and facilitate. This means that Switzerland, as a Party to the Convention, has taken the obligation to protect both the right of the child to be breastfed and the right of the mother to breastfeed.

Of course, each country decides how this right is guaranteed by adopting appropriate legislative and policy measures and I would guess that in countries where there are practical obstacles to the fuilfilment of this right and where voluntary codes do not work, legislatures are sometimes compelled to act to reaffirm it (this is what happened in Scotland, for example, through the Breastfeeding Bill of 2004).

I do not think that Switzerland has reaffirmed the right to breastfeed in public explicitly in any of its laws. Possibly it is because it is not really a contested issue in the same way it is in Anglo-Saxon countries, so there was no practical need for this particular right to be codified. With respect to jurisprudence, as far as I could see no cases of discrimination regarding breastfeeding mothers have been brought to courts (while I could not possibly check all lower-instance court decisions, I checked both the Federal Tribunal and the European Court of Human Rights database).

Thanks!

That was the sort of information I was after - very interesting!

swisspea

Contact ur HR. Ask for a place where u can feed ur child or milk urself. May be u will make couple of phone calls and write couple of emails. At the end they won't say no.