Addressing women’s concerns

Hundreds of women and men marched in the streets of Amman last Thursday on the occasion of the International Labour Day to highlight the plight of women in the labour market and other areas.

Unfortunately, only "hundreds" took part at a time when the occasion warranted a much bigger march, perhaps in the tens of thousands at least commensurate with the occasion.

Against this backdrop, the march was a bit of a disappointment for activists and stakeholders championing gender equality. The organisers wanted to highlight gender inequality in the country against the backdrop of the very low rank of Jordan in the Gender Gap Index, published by the World Economic Forum 2017, which ranked Jordan at 142 out of 144 countries!

This is indeed outrageous if true and something urgent needs to be done to address this crisis. Jordan should be in the forefront of countries promoting gender equality, but to be ranked at 142 does not correspond to the otherwise good image and profile of Jordan in promoting and protecting equal rights for men and women.

True, the marchers highlighted some dimensions of the challenge still facing women in economic sectors, especially the continued denial of equal pay for work of equal value, availability of affordable daycare centres and the absence of a dependable public transportation network until now.

One can add dozens of other rights that are being denied to women that perhaps eluded the march, which could have been, therefore, more focused on certain basic rights being denied to women wishing to enter the labour market or take part in the economic development of the country, including sexual harassment.

Women constitute half of the population, and not having an equal opportunity to participate in the economic development of the country is certainly a big loss for the national economy. True, the Lower House's Labour Committee has introduced amendments to the draft Labour Law on equal pay and the availability of daycare centres, but even if adopted, these changes do not go far enough to address the principal concerns of women.