In the months since the Harvey Weinstein story broke and the #MeToo movement exploded, there has been a growing awareness of the use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), in some cases, to gag victims of sexual assault, or buy their silence, preventing them from going public with their stories, or even sharing information with colleagues and acquaintances. Many people, however, remain unaware of the extensive use of such agreements to silence women who have experienced maternity discrimination.

We know that such discrimination is rife in the UK: an Equality and Human Rights Commission report estimated in 2015 that 54,000 women a year lose their jobs as a result. But the full picture may be masked by the widespread abuse of NDAs.

Amanda Symes (not her real name) had been working for a large finance corporation for many years and had worked her way gradually up the ladder, progressing from an entry-level role to a much more prestigious position. Then, she explains: “I got pregnant: and it all started.”

She continues: “When I told my team I was pregnant, I lost count of the number of people who said: ‘I assume you won’t be coming back to work, then.’ Then there were general comments – observations about my weight, comments like: ‘Don’t upset the pregnant lady.’”

Symes briefly mentioned the comments to somebody in HR. When the time came, she went on maternity leave. Then two weeks before she was due to start back at work, she was called in by HR for a “catchup”.

At the meeting, Symes was told the company knew she was unhappy in her role and wanted to move her. They offered two options: one was a base-level role in a different team, far junior to the position she had held, with a salary about £10,000 lower. The other was similar to her previous job, but required her to take a significant number of exams within her first six months back at work: a non-negotiable requirement Symes felt was simply incompatible with adjusting to juggling motherhood and her career. All she wanted was to return to the job she had enjoyed and done well at before maternity leave.

When Symes didn’t budge, the HR professionals started criticising her past performance, suggesting that she had not been good enough at her role, although all her previous reviews had been extremely positive. Eventually, “they handed me a [pre-prepared] envelope and said: ‘You can take this offer.’ It was a financial offer for redundancy. At that point, I left in tears.”

With the help of a lawyer friend, Symes wrote a letter to her company. The firm responded by doubling the amount of money they were offering, “but said I had to sign the NDA if I wanted to receive any money and I had to tell my friends and anyone that asked it was my decision to leave”.

She considered legal action, “but I was so emotionally drained from the whole thing and so upset and I started having panic attacks at home. In the end I had to see a counsellor and get my head sorted before I could find a new job.”

Despite not having done anything wrong, Symes has been left with a sense of guilt. “Maybe if I’d had the courage to stand up and do it, it might not have happened to the next person that came along, but at the end of the day I just couldn’t risk my family and everything else. That’s my biggest regret, not being strong enough to do that.”

According to Joeli Brearley, founder of the campaign group Pregnant Then Screwed, NDAs are very common in pregnancy- and maternity-discrimination cases. “There are many well-known companies who use them regularly to cover up mistreatment of new mothers in the workplace. For obvious reasons we cannot say the names of these companies, but the public would be very shocked if they knew what was going on behind the closed doors of some of the most well-known and loved brands in the UK.”

Brearley knows first-hand of maternity discrimination. She started Pregnant Then Screwed in 2015 after being sacked at four months pregnant, the day after informing her employer. “I started legal proceedings but then discovered I was having a high-risk pregnancy and the doctor said: ‘Whatever you do, don’t get stressed.’ Stress could trigger early labour and at four months pregnant my baby would have died. I was forced to drop the case.”

NDAs are used to hide discrimination against pregnant women and mothers. Photograph: Yuri Arcurs/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Pregnant Then Screwed runs a free legal advice line (helping on average 350 callers a year) and a mentor scheme to support women taking legal action against employers. In the past few months, it has carried out a survey of 260 women who had signed NDAs after experiencing pregnancy or maternity discrimination. More than 90% said they felt signing an NDA was their only option. A shocking 70% of respondents said they felt signing the NDA had had a negative impact on their mental health.

Lisa Thurrock (not her real name) was working for a FTSE 100 company at senior level when she got pregnant. She told Pregnant Then Screwed: “I had been a dedicated, high-achieving employee for six years with an exemplary record of achievement, so when I discovered I was pregnant I wasn’t worried about my career.” But as soon as she told her employers, things “turned sour”.

“They sidelined me from meetings and started to give some of my work to a more junior, male member of my team without any discussion. They chipped away at my confidence, making backhanded comments about my appearance and my work ethic, which hadn’t changed. I knew the stress of it all was getting to me and I was concerned about my health and the health of the baby so I kept my head down and waited until maternity leave, hoping that when I returned things would be back to normal.

“Six weeks after my baby was born I received an email. It was a discussion between my boss and the HR department, sent to me by accident. My boss wanted to make me redundant and said I wouldn’t make a fuss as I was on maternity leave and probably wanted to leave anyway. He realised his mistake and called me to invite me in for a meeting.

“I dragged myself there with my baby daughter. I was still in pain from the birth, [and I’d only] had three hours’ sleep. I was so confused and exhausted I barely remember how I got there or what was said, but I just wanted it to be over so I could try and get on with figuring out how to be a mother.

“They offered me money and a good reference as long as I signed a non-disclosure agreement. They said that this was the best offer I would get, more than redundancy would pay, so I should take it and enjoy my time on maternity leave. They would make sure my reference was fantastic so I would have no problem getting a new job.

“I had a solicitor look over the agreement, but I knew that I couldn’t fight it – I had no fight left in me. I accepted the offer. It is now 18 months later and my mental health has deteriorated as a result. I was diagnosed with post-natal depression but I know it was this incident that triggered it.

“With the evidence I had I could have taken them to tribunal and got a much larger payout and humiliated them in the process to ensure this didn’t happen to another woman. I know they targeted me because I was fragile and vulnerable, but it doesn’t stop me feeling guilty that I allowed them to get away with it. What message am I sending to my daughter?”

Seema Gill, an employment lawyer for My Business Counsel, says it is difficult to grasp the full extent of the problem. “In practice, many women don’t want the stress of tribunal proceedings when they are already going through difficult life changes and also feel that it may jeopardise their prospects with a future employer. They therefore opt to settle a claim and the settlement terms will invariably include a non-disclosure clause to protect the employer.”

Brearley points out that simply trying to abolish NDAs is not necessarily the answer, as victims are sometimes keen for protection from reputational damage as they try to find a new job in a marketplace prejudiced against women who dare to stand up for themselves. One woman surveyed by Pregnant Then Screwed commented: “If I didn’t sign I was afraid that my employers would tell prospective employers that it was all my fault”.

Pregnant Then Screwed has started a petition to extend the time limit for maternity-discrimination tribunal cases from three months to six months, giving women more time to consider their options. It is also calling on the government to set up a central monitoring body for NDAs.

It may not be possible to abolish NDAs. But we urgently need to get to grips with the scale of discrimination they are being used to hide.