A lot of people are having a difficult time in the recession – and pregnant women and new mums are getting a particularly hard time of it.

A whole raft of maternity benefits have been axed or restricted. The Health in Pregnancy Grant, Sure Start Maternity Grant, Child Benefit and Tax Credits are all affected, leaving women with less money at a time when they really need it.

We are hearing more reports of employers unfairly – and unlawfully – forcing women out of their jobs. Before the recession, 30 000 women each year lost their jobs because of pregnancy discrimination and the situation is getting worse.

The Government’s plans for changes to maternity and parental leave risk taking us backwards on gender equality. We are seeking to influence these policies to get the best possible outcomes for parents and their babies.

At the same time, frontline NHS maternity services are being cut.

This has to stop. The Valuing Maternity campaign is calling for Government to champion pregnant women and new mothers, not make life more difficult.

The campaign calls for job security for pregnant women and new mothers, maternity and parental leave that promotes real equality, and services to support a safe and healthy pregnancy.

The Valuing Maternity campaign involves more than a dozen unions, women’s organisations, parents’ groups and advice services. This broad-based engagement reflects widespread concern about the situation of pregnant women and new mothers.

Anyone with an interest in fair treatment of new mums are urged to sign up to the campaign.

Valuing Maternity are collecting women’s stories about their treatment at work. Women can use an interactive tool to rate their employer’s compliance with the law. They want to hear what is happening to maternity services locally.

You can also follow Maternity Action on Twitter and spread the word using the hash tag #valuingmaternity.

The latest annual report on gender equality from the European Commission shows that improving equality between women and men is essential to the EU’s response to the current economic crisis.

It is said that EU countries need to get more women into the labour market if they are to meet the EU’s overall objective of 75% employment rate for all adults by 2020. One of the way’s of improving Europe’s competitiveness is to obtain better balance between women and men in economic decision-making positions. Studies have shown that gender diversity pays off and companies with higher percentages of women on corporate boards perform better than those with all-male boards.

“The economic case for getting more women into the workforce and more women into top jobs in the EU is overwhelming,” said Viviane Reding, Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship.

“We can only reach our economic and employment goals by making full use of all our human resources – both in the labour market as a whole and at the top. This is an essential part of our economic recovery plans.”

The Commission also took an important step towards the goal of ending gender-based violence by proposing a package of measures to strengthen the rights of crime victims (IP/11/585), which included a series of measures specifically aimed at helping women who fall victim to domestic violence.

You can read more on the report and accompanying documents on the EC News website.