ABSTRACT
The early 1970s in Britain saw consecutive acts of government legislation – the Equal Pay Act of 1970, the Sex Discrimination Act of 1975 and the Race Relations Act, 1976 – that resulted in longstanding changes to the workplace. The Sex Discrimination Act, which sought to end prejudice against married persons in the field of employment, had meaningful implications for the Diplomatic Service. The debates surrounding the unpaid and unofficial status of work undertaken by diplomats’ wives, both of a professional and more traditional nature, especially at post, rumbled on. The genuine voice of the Foreign Office child was rarely heard. The improvement in children’s well-being when their parents were closer to them calls to mind article six of the United Nations (UN) Declaration; these children were all separated from their mothers, although it might be argued that they are not ‘of tender years’.
