Jordan women’s groups mark 74th Independence Day

AMMAN — Women’s groups on Tuesday praised the achievements made in Jordan on the occasion of the 74th Independence Day and called on building on it in their future work and strategies.

“We need to continue working hard to preserve what we have achieved and to build on it to achieve more structured gains,” said Solidarity Is Global Institute (SIGI) Executive Director Asma Khader.

Khader told The Jordan Times that Jordanian women played a pivotal role over the years in strengthening democracy and independence values over the years.

“Without the full participation of women in all spheres of life society will not move forward and women in Jordan have played an important role on many levels to ensure the advancement of society,” Khader added.

Jordanian National Commission for Women (JNCW) Salma Nims said the most important achievement was the Jordanian government’s endorsement of JNCW’s five-year national strategy for women.

The 2020-2025 National Strategy for Women’s main vision is to ensure a society free of "all forms of gender-based violence and discrimination", in which women and girls realise their full human rights and have equal opportunities to achieve inclusive and sustainable development, she said.

“This is an important and recognisable achievement over the years that reflects the government’s commitment to strengthening women’s position in the society,” Nims told The Jordan Times.

The importance of the strategy, Nims added, is that it was built with multi-sector participation from civil society organisations, the governorates, the private sector and Parliament.

Meanwhile, SIGI issued a statement to mark the occasion and repeated the organisation’s call to designate a national day for women in Jordan on October 2.

“In the 1950s on October 2 the government granted partial rights for women in Jordan in response to women’s demands and we are hopeful that this day will be recognised and honoured by the government,” Khader stressed.

The SIGI statement pointed out to some of the steps that were adopted by the Jordanian government to ensure women’s participation in various spheres such as appointing the first female ambassador in 1969 and the first woman minister in 1979.

The year 1993 witnessed the election of the first woman in the Lower House of Parliament and in 1996, women entered senior positions within the judiciary branch as a judge, the SIGI statement added.

From then on, women assumed various leadership positions in the government, legislative body and other entities, the SIGI statement added.