Give more land for nurseries, pleads Minister

At an FNC meeting, Mariam Al Roumi said nurseries should be moved out of villas and into proper buildings.

ABU DHABI // The Minister of Social Affairs has called on local governments to donate land on which to build nurseries to help working women.

At a Federal National Council session on Tuesday, Mariam Al Roumi said nurseries should be moved out of villas and into proper buildings.

“We face the problem that local governments do not allocate grounds for nurseries,” she said. She added that recently Dubai had provided space to be rented out for this purpose.

Comments were made during a discussion over the lack of nurseries at government institutes in the country.

A Cabinet decision, made in 2006, required government and federal entities to have nurseries on premises. Since then, only 37 institutions have complied.

However, Ms Al Roumi told the FNC that the decision was not binding. She said a law was in the works to make it so.

“Hopefully with that, the number of nurseries will increase,” she said.

Salim Al Ameri (Abu Dhabi) said the law should also cover the private sector where there was also a need for nurseries. He added that nursery fees were too high.

In response, Ms Al Roumi said that even nurseries at government entities required a fee, although she admitted it was less than other private nurseries.

She said they would look into encouraging the private sector to open nurseries for the children of staff, and special spaces for nursing mothers.