AMMAN — Lawmakers, heads
of women’s organizations, professional and vocational unions, as well as
academics, economists, activists, and members of political parties, in addition
to representatives of the Ministry of Labor and the
Social Security Corporation met on Saturday to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on working women to present
their recommendations and suggested remedies to the competent authorities.
اضافة اعلان
Titled “Jordanian women
in the shadow of a ‘compounded pandemic’” and held under the patronage of the
Minister of Labor
Nayef Steitieh, the conference convened to present and
deliberate the outcome of a study “How has COVID-19 affected the work of
Jordanian women and their safety?” conducted by Al Quds Center for Political
Studies in cooperation with the Norwegian embassy.
Founder and Director of
Al Quds Center
Oraib Al-Rantawi told
Jordan News that having monitored the
adverse impact of COVID-19 on the various economic sectors, the center sought
to examine the social, economic, psychological, and health repercussions of the
pandemic on women professionals, namely private-sector employees, owners of
small and medium-sized businesses, and self-employed women. “Have they
benefited from the government’s programs, have there been any steps taken to
bridge the gender gap and promote women’s economic participation?” The answers
and recommendations came in the outcome of the study, he said.
According to the study,
the number of reported cases of workplace harassment dropped, but not due to
policies or change of behavior, rather because teams from the
Ministry of Labor
were making regular visits to the workplace to ensure that defense orders were
being observed, in addition to the fact that more women were working from home.
However domestic violence against women increased during the pandemic lockdowns.
The study suggested that
COVID-19 has worsened women’s
opportunities and participation in the economy
and that women were the segment most adversely affected by the pandemic. With
samples of women surveyed from across the Kingdom, the study showed that 74
percent of those who lost their jobs post-pandemic were women; 4–5 percent of
women could not afford housing expenses and resorted to living with other
family members, while 5–7 percent moved to lower-cost housing; 35.8 percent of
working mothers sent their children to stay under the care of their
grandparents; and 69 percent of working mothers left their children under the
care of their fathers. In the workplace, 17.4 percent of self employed women
closed their businesses and 5 percent of women working in the unorganized
sector lost their jobs.
Moreover, the study found
that women were in the forefront among those who lost their jobs or their
social protection, and suffered wage cuts. Even when sectors reopened, women
were mostly excluded from the resumption of service under the pretext (by
employers) that the husband or the breadwinner has a protected job,
disregarding the fact that there are many households run by women breadwinners.
Additionally, a significant
number of working women resigned when kindergartens and schools closed and moved
to online learning, giving priority to taking care of the household and the
children.
The pandemic has also
revealed an increasing trend in society; harassment in all its forms has risen,
including in the workplace, at home, and online. Forty-six percent of surveyed
women said they were subjected to electronic harassment but often remain silent
about their experience.
Jordan has one of the
lowest percentages of
female workforce participation in the world, not
exceeding 14 percent, according to the study; 72 percent of women do not enjoy
social protection, and 71 percent of women working in the private sector get
paid below the minimum wage.
While the conference
revealed a bleak picture of women’s status in the job market, women activists
said COVID-19 has only exposed the division of labor and the gender gap, and
did not create it.
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