AMMAN —
Despite a 2015
pledge to close the gender equality gap by 2030, women’s rights activists
have recently told
Jordan News that
the country continues to fail women, who make up almost half the country’s
population.
اضافة اعلان
The pledge,
which was to be carried out by the Ministry of Labor and Jordanian National
Commission for Women (JNCW), was meant to ultimately end discrimination against
women through legal protections, economic empowerment, social liberation, and
educational development.
Gender experts believe that there has been some progress with the
National Committee for Pay Equity amending five articles of the Labor Law in
2019 related to equal treatment, access to daycare, nondiscriminatory pay,
maternity protection, harassment, and several other issues. However, many
obstacles remain.
Secretary-General of JNCW Salma Nims shed light on the economic
challenges that women continue to face. In an interview with
Jordan News, she stated that “Women’s
economic participation and autonomy is still a major challenge in Jordan.”
According to
a study by the International Labor Organization (ILO),
“the gender gap in Jordan’s labor force participation resulted in a loss of $8
billion in the value of GDP in 2018.” That gap was 77 per cent in 2020,
according to the World Economic Forum’s
GlobalGender Gap Report of 2021.
The situation is “unfortunate”, Reem Aslan, a technical gender
expert at the International Labor Organization (ILO), told
Jordan News in an interview. The economic participation of women
continues to hover around 14 percent, despite a decent amount of funds and
support dedicated to narrowing the gender gap, according to Aslan.
“We need to
show how women’s economic participation can impact the family, the company, and
then the GDP,” she added.
A report
released in March by the
Department of Statistics (DoS) showed
that the rate of unemployment in the fourth quarter of 2020 increased 8.7
percent for females and 4.9 percent for males, compared to the fourth quarter
of 2019.
A 2020 report by UNESCO noted that
Jordan has “one of the lowest employment rates for women worldwide.” It also
shows the Kingdom falling well short of its 2030 goal if women’s economic
participation continues on its current trajectory.
Experts
attributed these figures to a number of root causes, including societal
perceptions and government policies that reinforce traditional gender roles.
Deemah
Alkharabsheh, senior camp assistant with UN Women, told
Jordan News that decision-making processes often exclude women,
particularly in the public sector. She added that despite proving themselves,
very few women have been given the opportunity to rise to leadership roles and
executive positions.
“The
decision-makers continue to involve women at a low rate in governmental teams
and top managerial positions,” Alkharabsheh said.
There is a
“lack of incentives from the government to facilitate women’s integration into
the labor market, such as through increased access to credit, improved
transportation, and the creation of gender-responsive workplace environments,”
Better Work Jordan said in its
Gender Strategy 2019-2022
report.
Nims also told
Jordan News that a major step towards
fulfilling the 2015 pledge would be to uphold reliable human resources
management systems.
“We need to
work towards closing the gender gap. We need to create safe work environments.
And that’s why the implementation of policies to protect women from harassment
and violence and discrimination within the work environment is a very important
direction at the policy level,” Nims said.
She added that
with equal treatment and equal opportunities, women would be encouraged to
enter the workforce, explaining that it is up to businesses and lawmakers to
recognize women’s input and implement policies against gender discrimination.
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