The ruling People's National Congress (PNC) parliamentary group leader Ibrahim Falah has been criticised for his remarks comparing the pain of childbirth to the burden of being a parliamentarian.
Speaking in the People's Majlis on Wednesday, the Inguraidhoo MP said only mothers know the pain of childbirth and only parliamentarians know the burden of spending their whole day at work.
“This is just like when a mother gives birth to a child; no one else, no one who hasn't experienced it, would feel the pain that that mother feels. Being a member of parliament is like that,” Falah claimed.
Social media users have expressed anger over his remarks.
"The Qur'an talks about the pain of giving birth to a child, but it doesn't talk about the pain of sitting in that chair," one man wrote in a Facebook post.
Another person wrote that he regretted that narrow-minded people like Falah were elected to parliament.
"What a plague this is, you can't even imagine what a woman goes through from conception to delivery, and you can't even imagine the pain a mother goes through in giving birth," a woman wrote in a Facebook post.
Some of the disgruntled commenters described the MPs as "political thieves" and that such work cannot be compared to the burden of a mother.
"When people who don't know a thing try to sit in a big chair, everything becomes a burden," a woman wrote on Facebook.
Despite the strong public reaction to the remarks, Falah has not offered an apology and the ruling party has not commented on the matter.
