Maternal Mobbing: Restoring the Value of Motherhood in Europe
Femina Europa’s intervention at the Council of Europe during a Conference of INGOs webinar entitled “Empowering Working Mothers – Advancing Recognition and Overcoming Workplace Challenges” 13th November 2025.
Introduction
(We are a French NGO founded in 2005, aiming to restore the authentic identity of women in all its dimensions, in complementarity with men, and to defend the value of motherhood in contemporary European society within international institutions.)
Today, I will address a phenomenon that remains both widespread and insufficiently recognised at the institutional level: maternal mobbing.
This presentation will first focus on understanding the concept of maternal mobbing and its manifestations in European society today, followed by the genesis and recognition of the concept, and finally the measures needed to prevent and address it through laws, policy, and social change.
Understanding Maternal Mobbing
Maternal mobbing encompasses all forms of harassment, discrimination, or unfair treatment directed at women in relation to pregnancy, motherhood, and child care responsibilities. It can occur in the workplace, during recruitment processes, in access to social services, or even in public life. Maternal mobbing can take many forms:
- Pressure to delay or avoid pregnancy, sometimes accompanied by suggestions of egg freezing or long-term postponement to meet corporate performance expectations.
- Refusal to hire or denial of promotion once a woman discloses her pregnancy or family plans.
- Downgrading of roles or contract modifications upon returning from maternity leave.
- Psychological harassment, including exclusion, humiliation, excessive workloads, or subtle punishment.
- Dismissal or non-renewal of work contracts during or after pregnancy, often disguised under administrative pretexts.
- Subtle exclusion from career opportunities, denial of flexible work arrangements, negative performance evaluations following maternity leave, or even overt harassment.
Its impact is cumulative, affecting women’s career progression, income, mental health, and economic productivity, with direct implications for family stability. These practices constitute a violation of gender equality and labour rights, while also breaching the protections guaranteed under European directives on work-life balance and anti-discrimination.
The European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) notes that the EU gender equality strategy post-2025 must address persistent inequalities, with public consultation highlighting priorities such as protection from gender-based violence, equal pay, economic participation, and access to healthcare. Respondents also call for stronger enforcement of equality legislation, gender mainstreaming, and gender-responsive budgeting. These findings illustrate that maternal mobbing is part of a broader structural challenge affecting women’s rights and societal development.
Genesis and Recognition of Maternal Mobbing
Between 2016 and 2017, Femina Europa, within the European platform New Women for Europe, undertook a comparative study of discrimination against mothers across EU Member States. The objective was to analyse the barriers and obstacles that women encounter when planning a family, taking maternity leave, or reintegrating into professional life after childbirth. The findings revealed a troubling paradox: in societies that claim to promote equality, motherhood often remains a source of professional vulnerability. Instead of being recognised as a social asset, motherhood often exposes women to subtle but systemic forms of exclusion: slowed careers, loss of income, job insecurity, and even moral isolation at work.
In 2018, an opportunity arose to bring this issue to the attention of the European Parliament. The FEMM Committee (Women’s Rights and Gender Equality) was reviewing a report by MEP Pina Picierno, entitled “Measures to prevent and combat mobbing and sexual harassment at workplace, in public spaces, and in political life in the EU. »
Femina Europa approached MEP Anna Záborská (EPP, Slovakia) and shared our research on harassment targeting pregnant women and mothers. With her and two other EPP colleagues, four amendments were tabled to explicitly include maternal mobbing in the scope of the report.
These amendments highlighted:
- The need to combat harassment related to pregnancy and motherhood as an essential dimension of work-life balance.
- The responsibility of the European Commission to identify and disseminate best practices in preventing such harassment.
- The importance of enabling women to report cases safely, without fear of reprisal.
- Recognition that bullying, sexual harassment, and unpaid care work can overlap and reinforce one another.
The amendments were adopted by the FEMM Committee in July 2018, and the entire report, including the concept of maternal mobbing, was adopted in plenary session in Strasbourg in September 2018. This represented the first formal recognition of maternal mobbing in an official European Parliament resolution.
Awareness and Policy Dissemination
Following this milestone, Femina Europa, in partnership with Anna Záborská, organised an event at the European Parliament in March 2019 to raise awareness of the issue among policymakers, NGOs, and civil society stakeholders.
The event brought together several French experts:
- Marine de Poncins, entrepreneur and mother of three, founder of Les Prodigieuses, who demonstrated how companies can foster a “culture of motherhood” that benefits both women and employers.
- Jacques Bichot, economist, who analysed the macroeconomic consequences of maternal mobbing and quantified the loss of human capital linked to the underutilisation of mothers’ skills.
The event had a significant ripple effect. It catalysed public debate in France and across Europe, encouraging academic publication and policy reflection. For instance, Marine de Poncins later published Co-naissance and created a consulting firm that helps companies reconcile pregnancy and work. Jacques Bichot’s analyses gained traction in national media.
Addressing Maternal Mobbing: A Multi-Level Approach
To effectively combat maternal mobbing, measures must be enacted simultaneously at the individual, institutional, and societal levels.
Individual Protection
- The EU has taken critical steps with the Directive 2019/1158 on Work-Life Balance, guaranteeing access to maternity and parental leave, flexible work arrangements, and childcare infrastructure.
- Minimum entitlements include four months of parental leave (two months non-transferable) and ten days of paternity leave.-
However, implementation remains uneven. Self-employed women and workers in non-standard employment are disproportionately excluded. Their maternity protections need to be extended.
Legal and Policy Frameworks
- The 2018 European Parliament resolution, through concrete Commission initiatives and monitoring mechanisms, needs to be enforced.
- Include maternal mobbing in the EU Gender Equality Strategy alongside sexual harassment and workplace discrimination.
- Encourage Member States to integrate explicit references to pregnancy and motherhood-related harassment in national labour laws.
- Strengthen enforcement through labour inspections, equality bodies, and accessible complaint procedures.
Work-Life Flexibility
- Flexible work arrangements, including telework, flexible hours, and part-time options, are vital to mitigate maternal mobbing. Chosen part-time work must be protected, ensuring no professional penalty.
- Safeguards must protect the right to disconnect, ensuring that flexibility does not blur the boundary between work and family life.
- Develop corporate certification schemes rewarding family-friendly policies.
- Encourage employers to recognise motherhood as a source of leadership, empathy, and productivity, not as a liability.
Economic Recognition of Care Work
Mothers face a measurable wage penalty, which extends to retirement, due to career interruptions, reduced hours, and caregiving responsibilities. Policy solutions include:
- Recognising unpaid informal caregiving as a valuable economic and social contribution, by facilitating mothers’ access to credit, entrepreneurship, training, and pensions.
- Ensuring salary adjustments and pension calculations account for maternity-related interruptions.
- Reducing or exempting taxes on essential family and childcare products.
Broader Family Policy Measures
Maternal mobbing cannot be addressed solely through workplace policies. Comprehensive family policies must:
- Recognise the economic value of unpaid parental work by facilitating housing credits and tax incentives, including full tax exemption for mothers with three or more children, as implemented in Hungary to support financial independence. From 2026, mothers under 40 with two children will also receive full tax exemption, and family tax allowances will increase by a further 50 per cent.
- Encourage banks to maintain family-friendly lending policies.
- Create an EU-wide observatory on family-related discrimination, tracking maternal mobbing and evaluating policy effectiveness.
Social Awareness and Education
Policy measures alone are insufficient. Our aim is to shift societal and workplace norms to value
caregiving as a shared responsibility and a social asset:
- Educational campaigns, media representation, and leadership initiatives must reinforce that maternity, parenting, and care are advantages for society, not burdens.
- Provide psychological and legal support structures for victims of maternal mobbing, including accessible reporting channels and confidential mediation.
Conclusion
Maternal mobbing is a direct attack on women’s reproductive freedom, their ability to decide when and how to become mothers without professional penalties. It is important to distinguish maternal mobbing from broader gender pay gaps. Many women choose to adjust their work, through reduced hours, flexible arrangements, or career pauses, to be the primary caregiver, particularly during early childhood. This is a freely made choice reflecting the essential role of motherhood in society. When such choices affect income or career progression, these outcomes should not be interpreted solely as discrimination. True equality recognises difference, values all contributions, and ensures women are not penalised for their maternal responsibilities. Addressing maternal mobbing is not only a matter of gender equality, but also of economic foresight, demographic sustainability, and social justice. Policies that support parents, particularly during the critical early years of childhood, strengthen both families and society.
Europe faces declining birth rates, labour shortages, and growing social fragmentation. A culture that discourages motherhood or penalises women for having children undermines not only women’s rights but also the future vitality of Europe. We must revalue motherhood within career advancement and pension systems, ensuring women are not forced to choose between their aspirations and their families.
By combating maternal mobbing, we uphold the EU’s foundational values of human dignity, equality, and solidarity, while ensuring that women’s dual contribution, professional and maternal, is recognised, protected, and celebrated. The recognition of maternal mobbing in the 2018 European Parliament resolution was an important step. The next step is implementation: integrating these principles into EU policy, encouraging Member States to legislate against maternal harassment, and supporting families with practical, inclusive measures.
Femina Europa therefore calls upon the European Commission to:
- Conduct a comprehensive study on maternal mobbing across Member States;
- Create an EU-wide observatory on family-related discrimination; and
- Include maternal mobbing prevention in forthcoming equality, employment, and demographic resilience initiatives.
Protecting and supporting mothers is an investment in the human and social capital upon which Europe’s prosperity depends.
When motherhood is respected, women thrive. And when women thrive, Europe flourishes.
