'Everyone deserves paid time off after a bereavement'
BBCA Southampton solicitor has launched a petition calling for a legal right to paid bereavement leave in the UK.
Alice Cutler, 26, lost both her parents before she was 18 and said she cannot imagine how she would have coped without time off.
Some companies do this voluntarily, but there is no legal requirement.
The Labour government plans to introduce five days unpaid leave, which Ms Cutler said "doesn't go far enough" and would "impact people financially".
Her petition has almost 400 signatures and if it reaches 100,000 the issue could be debated in Parliament.
Ms Cutler said she had been running a series of Instagram lives called Living with Loss.
She said she chats to people about death, because "we're not very good as a British population at talking about it".
She said: "I have had some pretty horrific stories of people who have been forced to take unpaid leave, employers refusing leave and on one occasion someone being fired.
"I decided to start a petition and see if we can change the law."
Ms Cutler said currently the existing law gives parents bereavement leave if they lose a child under the age of 18.
She said: "It's unfortunately one of the inevitable things, something we will all go through... at some stage in our life.
"I don't know how I would have functioned having to go into work the next day.
"Your mind is just all over the place, you need time to process, but also you need time to deal with the mountain of admin that frankly comes with death and quite a lot of these places are only open during working hours.
"I have always been really fortunate to work for fantastic employers who have given me the time off that I've needed, when I've needed it and everyone deserves that."
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