AMMAN —
According to the media director of the Social Security Corporation (SSC), 5,897
working women benefited from maternity insurance between January 1 and July 20,
at a cost of JD6.6 million, while the total number of women beneficiaries of
insurance is 62,600, Al-Ghad News reported.
اضافة اعلان
Former assistant director-general of
administrative and financial affairs at SSC Mohammed Odeh said that the
amendment to the Social Security Law will include maternity insurance, giving a
pregnant worker the right to receive maternity leave allowance if she had
worked for at least eight months, continuous or intermittent, before giving
birth.
Odeh told Al-Ghad that the law in its current
version, specifically it Article 44, stipulates that “the insured woman may
benefit from maternity insurance according to the periods specified in the
applicable labor law, provided that: a) she is covered by the provisions of
this insurance during the last six months preceding her entitlement to
maternity leave; b) she has an official certificate proving she gave birth”.
Odeh said that there have been cases in which
women were unable to benefit from maternity insurance, due to the fact that
they work irregularly during the six months preceding childbirth, adding that
the amendment comes to protect the rights of women workers, and to ensure that
the largest number benefit from maternity insurance.
Reem Aslan, a gender expert at the
International Labor Organization, stressed the importance of increasing the
minimum period of maternity leave in the private sector to 90 days, which would
bring the private sector in line with the public sector, and also in line with
the ILO Convention on Maternity Protection Convention.
She indicated that Jordan is among a small
minority of Arab countries that provide maternity benefits through the social
security system. In most Arab countries, maternity leave is directly assumed by
employers through the employers’ responsibility systems.
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