FREEDOM
HOUSE
Women’s Rights in the
Middle East & North Africa
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Jordan
by Reem Abu Hassan
Population: 5,500,000
GDP Per Capita (PPP): $4,220
Economy: Mixed
capitalist
Ranking on UN HDI: 90 out of 177
Polity: Traditional
monarchy and limited parliament
Literacy:
Male 95.5% / Female 85.9%
Percent Women Economically Active:
27.6%
Date of Women’s Suffrage: 1974
Women’s Fertility Rate:
3.7
Percent Urban/Rural: Urban 79% / Rural 21%
Country
Ratings for Jordan
Nondiscrimination and Access to Justice: 2.4
Autonomy, Security, and Freedom of the
Person: 2.4
Economic Rights and Equal Opportunity: 2.8
Political Rights and Civic Voice: 2.8
Social and Cultural Rights: 2.5
(Scale of 1 to 5: 1 represents the lowest and 5 the
highest level of freedom women have to exercise their rights)
Introduction
The
Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is a constitutional monarchy that gained
independence from Britain in 1946. King Hussein ruled the country from 1952
until his death in 1999, at which time his son, Abdullah II, ascended the
throne. King Abdullah II, along with his council of ministers, holds broad
executive powers and may dissolve the bicameral National Assembly at his
discretion, as he did in 2001; he reinstated it in 2003. The central government
appoints the upper house of the National Assembly, the regional governors of the
12 governorates, and half of the municipal council members. The National
Assembly’s lower house and the other half of the municipal council members are
elected through universal adult suffrage. The king serves as head of the
judiciary.
Jordan has a population of an estimated 5.5 million, a
substantial number of whom are Palestinian.[i]
A number of Jordanians live in rural areas, although rural–urban migration is on
the rise. Islam is the state religion; more than 95 percent of Jordanians are
Sunni Muslims. Religious minorities are relatively free to practice their
religions.
Under King Abdullah
II, Jordan has embarked on a course of economic reform, acceding to the World
Trade Organization and working closely with the International Monetary Fund, as
well as signing free trade agreements with the United States and the European
Union. Nevertheless, Jordan continues to lack significant supplies of
water and oil. The country has a GDP per capita of $4,220.
The
Jordanian government limits freedom of expression. It owns a majority of
broadcast media, has wide discretionary powers to close print publications, and
often censors potentially offensive articles. Freedom of assembly is also
somewhat restricted. A substantial number of nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs) operate within the country on a broad range of social and political
issues, but professional associations have come under pressure to abstain from
engaging in political activities.
The
status of Jordanian women is currently undergoing a historic transition, with
women achieving a number of positive gains and new rights. While much room for
progress remains, Jordanian women enjoy equal rights with respect to their
entitlement to health care, education, political participation, and employment.
Nevertheless, women in Jordan continue to be denied equal nationality and
citizenship rights with men. Women also face gender-based discrimination in
Jordan’s family laws and in provision of government pensions and social security
benefits. Violence against women
remains a serious problem in Jordan, and protection mechanisms for women victims
of violence are inadequate.
The government has taken
several steps to improve women’s status in recent years, including the
appointment of women to government ministries and high-level posts. In November
2003, King Abdullah II appointed 7 women to the 55-seat upper house of the
National Assembly.
A
significant number of NGOs work for the promotion and protection of women’s
rights in Jordan. Women’s NGOs have had much success in breaking the silence on
the issue of domestic violence by lobbying high political offices to denounce
domestic violence and by increasing debate on the issue in the media. Despite
the parliament’s
rejection of several decrees and draft legislation aimed at providing women
greater equality, Jordanian women’s rights advocates have made great
strides in placing women’s rights at the center of national political debates.
Nondiscrimination
and Access to Justice
Jordanian law is a blend of Napoleonic code (inherited
from the Ottoman and Egyptian legal systems), Islamic Shari’a, and influences of tribal
traditions. The Jordanian
Personal Status Law (JPSL) (No. 61 of 1976) is derived from Shari’a, and includes various
opinions from a number of jurisprudential schools; in the absence of a provision
in the law, the Jordanian courts refer back to the most authoritative opinion in
the Hanafi school. The JPSL is applied in all personal status matters related to
the Muslim family such as
inheritance, child custody, marriage, and divorce.
Article 6(1) of Jordan’s constitution states: “Jordanians
shall be equal before the law. There shall be no discrimination between them as
regards their rights and duties on grounds of race, language or religion.”
Article 6(2) of the constitution further stipulates: “The Government shall
ensure work and education within the limits of its possibilities, and it shall
ensure a state of tranquility and equal opportunities to all Jordanians.” While
the constitution refers to the right of “every Jordanian” in numerous articles,
it fails to prohibit gender discrimination. Nevertheless, women’s rights
advocates frequently cite this article as verification of the constitution’s
intention to guarantee full equality between men and women, even though it does
not explicitly specify gender.[ii]
While Jordan’s laws are not overtly discriminatory, women
are treated unequally in a number of statutes. Gender-discriminatory language
can be found in provisions that regulate economic rights such as retirement and
social security, as well as laws that govern the family. In cases that fall
under the jurisdiction of Shari’a, Jordanian women are not provided the same
rights as male citizens and endure unequal treatment in their right to divorce,
custody, and inheritance.
In
the absence of a constitutional court, the available legal means to contest the
constitutionality of laws include bringing a case before the High Court of
Justice and submitting an ancillary challenge in a case before the
courts.[iii] The National Center for Human Rights[iv] deals with gender discrimination cases through its
complaints unit but does not have the legal capacity to file such cases before
the courts.
Gaps
in Jordanian laws also fail to provide protections for women’s rights and
equality. For example, no law specifically defines or criminalizes domestic
violence, and there are no enforcement mechanisms to ensure the implementation
of laws to promote and protect gender equality.
The
actual implementation of Jordan’s laws is often influenced by factors such as a
lack of training of police and court officials, patriarchal cultural norms and
customs, and male domination of the public sphere. Many women internalize these
social norms and practices, leading them to believe that the discrimination they
face is a normal part of life. Offenses committed against women are often
justified in terms of cultural beliefs. In addition, the state tends to favor
the interests of its male citizens by continuing to enact laws that reflect
certain social beliefs, value systems, and attitudes discriminatory against
women.
Despite the challenges to the advancement of women’s
rights, the Jordanian government has taken steps to update Jordan’s laws and
bring them in line with international standards. From 2001 to 2003, after the
king dissolved the parliament and much of the government, King Abdullah and the
Council of Ministers issued a number of provisional laws that promoted women’s
rights. These provisions included amendments to the Personal Status Law (No. 82
of 2001), the criminal code (No. 86 of 2001), the Civil Status Law (No. 9 of
2001), and the Provisional Passport Law (No. 5 of 2003). Nevertheless, when the
House of Representatives came back into session in the summer of 2003, it
rejected many of the provisional laws.
Article 3(3) of Jordan’s Nationality Law (No. 6 of 1954)
declares, “Any child born of a father with a Jordanian nationality shall be
Jordanian wherever born.” A Jordanian woman is allowed to retain her nationality
after marrying a non-Jordanian; however, Jordanian women married to
non-Jordanians are not permitted to confer their citizenship on their children.
Furthermore, the Law of Residency and Foreigners’ Affairs (No. 24 of 1973) does
not facilitate residency for foreign men married to Jordanian women nor to their
children, even though this law grants foreign wives of Jordanian men
preferential treatment.
Women have the right to be plaintiffs and defendants in
Jordanian courts and may appear before the police, the public prosecutor, the
courts, and administrative tribunals as witnesses or as experts. The testimonies
of men and women in Jordan’s civil courts are afforded equal weight, as they are
in non-Muslim (Christian) tribunals. In Shari’a courts, however, the testimony
of two Muslim women is equal to
that of one man.
Social norms and traditions sometimes deter a woman from
seeking justice from the courts on the premise that she is disobeying her
family. While the Bar Association Law (No. 11 of 1972) states that one of its
objectives is to provide legal aid to financially incapable citizens, in
practice this does not include equal access for women. A number of civil society
organizations provide legal aid for women, but most groups are based in Amman,
and rural women have limited access to such services.
The
Jordanian penal code (No. 16 of 1960) provides certain gender-specific
concessions to women who are pregnant or mothers. According to Article 27, if a
married couple is sentenced to prison for more than a year and have children
under the age of 18, then such sentences are consecutively applied. Article 17
also substitutes the death sentence with life imprisonment and hard labor for
pregnant women. At the same time, the Law of Criminal Procedures (No. 9 of 1961)
seems to contravene Article 17; it states that the death sentence for a pregnant
woman should be delayed for three months after she gives birth.
Certain articles of the Jordanian penal code also
discriminate against women. Article 340 provides reduced penalties for any man
who surprises his wife or a female relative during the act of adultery, in any
location, and proceeds to kill or injure the woman and/or her partner. While a
wife who injures or kills her husband or his lover during the act of adultery
may also receive a reduced penalty, the adulterous act must have been committed
in the matrimonial home.
Article 98 of the penal code also mandates penalty
reductions for a perpetrator who commits a crime in a fit of anger in reaction
to an unlawful or dangerous act on the part of the victim. Although this article
is gender-neutral in language, it is most often applied by the court in favor of
men. Courts sometimes cite this article to justify more lenient treatment in
cases of alleged “honor crimes,” in which a male family member kills a female
family member based on the suspicion of fornication.
Family-based violence against women in the name of family
“honor” is a serious problem in Jordan, and men and women receive different
legal and social treatment based on their gender. Although the Jordanian Law of
Criminal Procedures contains a number of principles that guarantee the right of
the accused,[v]
these principles are often jeopardized by other laws and regulations that
contradict the rule of law. The Crime Prevention Law contains some preventive
measures that empower the administrative governor to place persons who may
constitute a danger to the community in administrative detention. In the case of
“honor crimes,” women whose lives are threatened by their families are placed in
prison pursuant to this law for their own protection. However, the release of
such women from detention is conditional upon the consent of a male relative.
The
penal code outlines the standards of proof for adultery cases, one of which is
conclusive documentary evidence that a crime has been committed. In practice,
the police will submit a request to the forensic medical department to carry out
an examination of a woman accused of adultery by a forensic physician. Women
will usually consent in writing to such an examination in order to prove their
innocence.
Women victims of sexual violence in Jordan face numerous
gender-specific legal and social obstacles. Societal customs often serve to
pressure the guardians of a female victim to waive personal claims and drop
charges to avoid social stigma, particularly in cases of sexual assault, rape,
and homicide. Waiving the personal claim by the guardian allows the court to use
its discretion, which often leads to lenient sentences for perpetrators. In most
cases, a perpetrator of rape or molestation will avoid punishment if he marries
his victim in accordance with Article 308 of the penal code. This provision is
always justified on the basis of conferring protection on the female victim from
social stigma. There are no clear procedures to ensure the victim’s consent to
such a marriage.
Jordan signed on to the UN Convention on the Elimination
of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1992, with reservations
on articles[vi] chiefly concerning women’s nationality and housing
rights. The regular reporting system of
CEDAW encourages Jordan to eliminate gender-discriminatory legislation; however,
for CEDAW to affect Jordanian laws, the convention must be approved by the
parliament in accordance with Article 33(2) of the constitution.[vii] Debates on the compatibility of CEDAW and Islam are
frequent in Jordan, and a number of civil society groups have called for the
removal of Jordan’s reservations to CEDAW, particularly Article 15(4) concerning
freedom of movement and choice of residence. The Jordanian National Committee
for Women (JNCW) monitors Jordan’s compliance with CEDAW.
Women’s rights groups and civil society actors in Jordan
are working to promote the status of women’s freedoms in all aspects of life.
Their activities include lobbying for legal reforms and better rights
protections, providing services such as counseling and legal aid for women, and
implementing numerous advocacy projects. The government is engaged in a dialogue
with women’s rights groups that has helped to advance women’s rights as a key
component within Jordan’s overall strategy for political development.
Recommendations
1. The government should amend the nationality law and
the law of residency to ensure that Jordanian women and men have equal
nationality rights as citizens.
2. The government and civil society organizations should
expand legal aid and education programs to foster social values that reject
gender-based discrimination and violence against women.
3. The Jordanian parliament should revise and repeal
discriminatory clauses in the criminal and penal codes to ensure women’s equal
access to justice.
4. The
government should remove all reservations to CEDAW and take steps to implement
it locally.
Autonomy,
Security, and Freedom of the Person
Article 14 of the constitution guarantees freedom of
religion, provided that religious practices are consistent with “public order
and morality.” Islam, Christianity, and Judaism are the only state-recognized
religious faiths. However, while the Druze and Baha’i faiths are not officially
recognized, their practice is not prohibited. According to the constitution, waqf (religious community trusts) and
matters of personal status such as marriage, divorce, child custody, and
inheritance, fall within the exclusive jurisdiction of Shari’a courts for
Muslims and separate, non-Muslim tribunals for the other state-recognized
religious communities. The small Druze and Baha’i communities do not have their
own courts to adjudicate personal status and family matters, and their cases are
heard in Shari’a courts.
Jordanian law provides citizens the right to travel
freely within the country and abroad except in designated military areas. Unlike
Jordan’s previous law (No. 2 of 1969), the current Provisional Passport Law (No.
5 of 2003) does not require women to seek permission from their male guardians
or husbands in order to renew or obtain a passport. Nevertheless, in several recent
cases mothers reportedly could not depart abroad with their children because
authorities complied with requests from fathers to prevent their children from
leaving the country. Social
norms continue to play a major role in maintaining restrictive measures on
women’s freedom of movement.
The
Personal Status Law is applied in all matters relating to family law that
involve Muslims and the children of Muslim fathers. Non-Muslim tribunals apply
their own personal status laws, which are not published in the official gazette.
However, many Christians elect to apply Islamic legal provisions regarding
inheritance.
Jordanian
Muslims are required to marry according to Islamic marriage law.
According to Article 19 of the Personal Status Law, a woman can stipulate
conditions in the marriage contract provided that the conditions are not
unlawful and do not affect the right of any other person. In practice, however,
many women are unaware of this right and it is therefore rarely exercised. Some
Jordanian women’s advocates have suggested attaching a list of the possible
conditions to the actual marriage contract in order to inform women of their
full rights.
Welaya (guardianship) is a system in
Jordanian law whereby a person is appointed to act on behalf of and in the
interests of a minor or any other person of limited legal capacity. In Jordan, such a guardian has the
authority to require that his female dependent be under his supervision if the
woman is unmarried and under the age of 40 or previously married. If such a
woman rebels against her guardian, she will no longer be entitled to her
financial maintenance.
Islamic legal principles allow women to be the legal
guardian of their children, but the Personal Status Law in Jordan does not
provide women with this right; only the father is designated as the guardian of
his children.
Recent amendments to Jordanian laws have raised the
minimum age of marriage to 18 years, but the chief justice retains discretion to
permit the marriage of anyone who is at least 15 years old if it is deemed to be
in his or her interest. While the Hanafi school of Islamic law, dominant in Jordan,
does not require a male guardian to conclude a marriage contract on
behalf of an adult Muslim woman, the Jordanian government elected to adopt
the position of the Maliki school in this matter. The consent of a Shari’a judge
is required to conclude the marriage if the woman’s guardian opposes the
marriage without lawful justification.
Article 66 of the Personal Status Law is derived from
Islamic Shari’a and obligates the husband to provide maintenance for his wife
including food, clothing, housing, and medical care. This entitlement is viewed
as a wife’s lawful right, irrespective of her wealth or religion, and is
interlinked with the husband’s role as a provider and as the head of the
matrimonial household.
In
the case of a wife who works outside the home, amendments in Jordanian laws
protect her right of maintenance provided that her husband views her work as
legitimate and has agreed to it either explicitly or implicitly. The condition
regarding a husband’s approval stems from the argument that a wife should obey
her husband, which some Jordanian jurists interpret as the husband’s right to
confine a woman to the home. In practice, the legal and social hardships that
some women encounter while recovering their maintenance diminishes the positive
aspects of this right.
While polygamy is allowed in Jordan for Muslim men,
amended laws obligate the judge to verify that the husband has the financial
means to maintain his new wife. In addition, the courts are now required to
inform the second wife of the first marriage and notify the first wife of her
husband’s second marriage. If a man can satisfy all such financial and legal
requirements, he can be legally married to up to four wives at one
time.
Women do not have the same rights as men to marriage and
divorce in Jordan. The most common divorce procedure is the talaq (arbitrary divorce), which is
exclusively a right of the husband to divorce his wife without providing any
legal reason. The law recognizes the wife’s right to financial compensation
after an arbitrary divorce. Recent amendments have increased this amount to
equal the wife’s maintenance, compensated for no less than one year and no more
than three years. The wife also has the right to keep her dower amount and the
maintenance accumulated during the iddat period, a compulsory waiting
period for a woman following a divorce to ensure that she is not pregnant by the
husband with whom she is getting a divorce. Although there is increasing social
resistance in Jordan to men’s arbitrary right of divorce, there are currently no
legal restrictions on this practice.
A
woman seeking a divorce in Jordan, on the other hand, must sue under the Khula[viii] divorce proceeding. The Khula divorce was recently
introduced through amendments in Jordanian law that enable a wife to appear
before the court and request a dissolution of the marriage by stating that “she
does not want to continue her marital life, is afraid of disobeying God’s
rulings, and gives up all marital rights.” This method does not require the
woman to prove her claims; she simply states her desire, and the court will
order the dissolution of the marriage. However, this method of divorce favors
financially affluent women and does not take into consideration the
circumstances of poor women who will have trouble giving up their financial
marital rights to dissolve the marriage.
There are no specific provisions or laws in the penal
code that criminalize domestic violence, and there are no restraining orders for
cases of abuse. Cases of domestic violence in Jordan are prosecuted under the
penal code’s general laws on assault and battery.[ix] Although assault and battery are accepted as valid
reasons for initiating a judicial divorce, it is often very difficult for a
woman to prove such a case. Shari’a courts require the testimony of two male
witnesses in these circumstances; the testimony of the wife alone is not
accepted as sufficient evidence.
The
law obligates members of the medical profession to report cases that may involve
a possible felony or misdemeanor; however, underreporting is common. The police
will not pursue cases in which the inflicted injury causes an inability to work
for ten days or less without a complaint by the injured party. Women victims of
violence are often discouraged from reporting their abuse to police because of
the social stigma and shame associated with such crimes. A battered woman may
also be pressured by her family to drop the charges.
Although the Family Protection Department[x]
and the Ordinance of Shelters for Family Protection (No. 48 of 2004) represent
major advances in services rendered to victims of domestic violence, the
shortage of shelters for battered women has prevented the Family Protection
Department from delivering sufficient assistance to victims of physical and
spousal abuse. Only one temporary shelter for battered women is in operation; it
was set up by the Jordanian Women’s Union, a nongovernmental organization.
Women’s rights groups and civil society actors in Jordan
are working to promote the status of women under the family law and to address
issues of gender-based and domestic violence. The government is also working in
cooperation with civil society to combat these problems.
Recommendations
1. The government and parliament should amend the
Jordanian Family Law to remove articles that do not ensure women equal rights
with men within the marriage.
2. The government and civil society organizations should
expand their efforts to raise
public awareness of the problems of family violence and the need to support
women victims of violence.
3. The government and parliament should amend the penal
code to provide clear and explicit penalties for instances of domestic and
family violence and abuse.
4. The government should take steps to fully implement
the 2004 Ordinance of Shelters for Family Protection Number 48 in honor killing
cases.
Economic
Rights and Equal Opportunity
Jordanian law recognizes a woman’s right to own property
without restrictions. Women do not need the approval of their husbands or
guardians to dispose of their property. Nevertheless, a recent report by the United Nations
Fund for Women (UNIFEM) states
that only 10 percent of land and property owners in Jordan are
actually women.[xi] Social norms, especially in rural areas, hinder women’s
ability to obtain economic resources, particularly for land ownership and
finance.
There are no legal restrictions on the right of Jordanian
women to enjoy their income and assets independently. However, it is the
accepted norm for single working women, who represent the highest percentage of
economically active women, to contribute to the family income by giving their
salaries to their families. Working wives, on the other hand, often use their
salaries to pay for family expenses directly.[xii]
Women are guaranteed the right to inheritance under
Islamic law as applied in Jordan, but in certain cases the woman will inherit
half the share of the man. In addition, social constraints impede women’s rights
to inheritance. Societal customs place emphasis on confining family property to
the males of the family, exerting pressure on women to waive their portions of
inheritance, especially property, in favor of their brothers. There are no set
procedures in Jordanian Shari’a courts to protect women from being forced to
waive their inheritance rights and no guarantees that they will be compensated.
According to UNIFEM’s 2004 report, it is common practice
in Jordan for the head of the family to transfer his real assets legally to his
sons during his lifetime to prevent women from receiving their inheritance
share.[xiii] If a father dies before making such a legal transfer, no
laws can prevent a daughter from receiving her share as calculated under the
Shari’a system. However, many women in rural areas may not be aware of such
legal rights or know how to litigate such claims.
Women can freely enter into business and finance-related
contracts and activities at all levels, and they enjoy full legal competence in
the field of business. Women represent 70 percent of all beneficiaries of
micro-finance projects in Jordan, with many of these programs exclusively
targeting women. Micro-finance projects are being extended to many regions of
Jordan. However, a study conducted by the ministry of agriculture and the United
Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on the status of women in
agriculture in 2001 demonstrated that women obtained only 20 percent of the
total amount of agricultural loans, the value of which did not exceed 12 percent
of the total amount of loans for that year.
Article 20 of the Jordanian constitution declares
elementary education compulsory for all Jordanians and free for all students in
government schools. There is no legal gender discrimination, and social norms
encourage families to enroll their children in schools and universities. At the
national level the gross education enrollment rate is now higher for females
than for males (76.1 percent for women as compared to 71.9 percent for men), and
85.9 percent of women age 15 and above are literate.[xiv]
The
Jordanian constitution recognizes the basic principles of the right to work and
equal opportunity for all its citizens in Articles 22 and 23.[xv] Workers and employees are described in gender-neutral
ways in both Article 2 of the Labor Law, which defines the worker as “each
person, male or female, who performs a job in return for wages,” and the Civil
Service Ordinance.[xvi] However, no provisions specifically prohibit gender
discrimination in labor opportunities or in the workplace, and no provisions
stress equal salaries for men and women who hold the same positions.
Social discrimination against women is common in the
field of labor and stems from popular notions that women need to be protected.
Another popular belief in Jordan is that women who enter the job market are
doing so to supplement and increase their family’s income rather than to become
economically independent or to individually support their family.
Laws
and regulations in Jordan place certain conditions on the professions women can
choose to pursue. As a result, women’s economic participation is concentrated in
the socially accepted professions for women, such as nursing and teaching.
According to Article 23 of the constitution and Article
69 of the labor code, the minister of labor issues decisions specifying the
industries and economic activities that are off-limits for women workers, as
well as the hours during which women are prohibited from working.
Women are prohibited from working in quarries (stone,
limestone, phosphate, and other hazardous environments) and are not allowed to
work between 8 at night and 6 in the morning, except in some professions in
hotels, theaters, restaurants, airports, offices of tourism, hospitals, clinics,
and some transportation industries. Exceptions are also made for jobs requiring
yearly inventories and jobs preparing for beginning- and end-of-season retail
sales, as well as jobs that involve a fear of financial loss. Generally, these
regulations tend to cater to market interests rather than the protection of
women. Evening work for women is limited to 30 days per year and a maximum of 10
hours a day. In reality, these restrictions serve to limit the competition
between men and women in favor of men.
According to the Civil Service Ordinance of Jordan, the
department for civil service does not differentiate between applicants based on
gender; employment is determined by the application number and the results of
exams and personal interviews. However, the Civil Service Ordinance does
discriminate against women by unequally distributing certain benefits for men,
such as the family allowance and cost-of-living allowance, which are not equally
provided for women.
Within the Jordanian legal, cultural, and religious value
system, women technically have the right to be maintained by their husbands, as
husbands are required to support their wives financially. Based on this premise,
the Jordanian state does not recognize women’s rights to retirement and social
security benefits[xvii] unless certain conditions are met. Gender plays a key
role in determining eligibility for benefits based on: the length of employment
needed to become eligible for retirement benefits; when the benefits become
available; who is eligible to receive benefits; and the conditions under which
benefits are provided in the event of the death of an employee.
Article 14 of the Civil Retirement Law and Article 45(a)
of the Social Security Law encourage women to resign from their jobs by allowing
them to retrieve their entire retirement fund, giving them incentive to quit
their jobs during times of family financial trouble. Working women are also
encouraged by such legal provisions to leave their jobs when they marry. The law
awards an end-of-service bonus to a bride that she would normally receive only
at retirement.
Article 52 of the Social Security Law deems beneficiaries
as, “those family members of the insured … who fit the following [categories]:
a) his widow; b) his children and those of his brothers and sisters whom he
supports; c) his widowed and divorced daughters; d) the husband of the deceased
insured [woman].
Whereas a widow and dependents of a deceased male
employee need only to prove their relationship with him and that he is in fact
deceased, the requirements for the family of a deceased female employee make it
extremely difficult for the family to receive any of the retirement benefits due
her by law. According to Article 56 of the Social Security Law, the family must
prove that the husband is incapacitated or that the woman was the sole provider
for the family. The state justifies such discrimination on the premise that
women are usually the secondary providers for the family, which contradicts the
requirement that women workers pay the same share for such benefits as
men.
Many
women work in sectors not governed by the labor law and therefore cannot enjoy
the protection or benefits afforded by the law. Article 3 of the labor law
states that it does not apply to, “domestic labor (servants), gardeners, cooks,
and those in the same capacity, as well as members of the owner’s family who
work in his projects without receiving pay.” Foreign women workers, who work
primarily as domestic help or maids, receive no protection from gender-based
discrimination under these laws.
Women have specific protections in the workplace,
including the right to a 10-week maternity leave for the purpose of childcare,
of which 6 weeks must be allowed immediately following the birth of the
child.[xviii] An employer who employs 20 or more women must provide a
childcare facility for working mothers’ children under the age of four in cases
in which at least 10 children need care. Furthermore, a working mother is
allowed to take a year of absence without pay to raise her children, and a
mother is entitled to paid breaks to breast-feed her child during the first year
after birth.
Sexual harassment in the workplace or any other public
area is not explicitly defined or forbidden in Jordanian legislation. The
Working Women Department at the ministry of labor in Amman receives complaints
from working women, but these complaints are usually related to the
misapplication of the labor law concerning payment of wages. Women workers are
told to file complaints of sexual harassment with the Family Protection
Department, as the ministry of labor does not document such complaints. There
are no statistics on sexual harassment in the workplace and no specific records
at the family protection department on this matter.
Recommendations
1. The government and parliament should pass legislation
banning gender-based discrimination in all stages of employment and benefits and
establish enforcement mechanisms so that women have recourse to file complaints
and receive justice.
2. The government and parliament should pass legislation
banning sexual harassment in the workplace and establish procedures for
receiving complaints, collecting statistics on cases of sexual harassment, and
providing support services for women.
3.
The labor ministry should establish a department to monitor the application of
relevant laws and to ensure nondiscrimination against women in areas such as
minimum wage and equal wages with their male counterparts, with particular focus
on the situation of foreign workers, part-time workers, seasonal or temporary
workers, and micro-enterprises.
Political
Rights and Civic Voice
According to Article 3(a) of Jordan’s Law on Public
Gatherings, all Jordanians have the right to hold public gatherings and to
organize marches provided that prior written approval is obtained from the
administrative governor. The request must be submitted at least three days
before the date of the gathering and must include the names of the applicants,
their addresses, signatures, and the purpose, time, and place of the gathering.
Women are free to express their opinions and discuss
gender issues in public and in the media within the confines of Jordan’s general
restrictions on free speech and the media. Freedom of speech and freedom of the
press are guaranteed in Article 15 of the constitution; however, the Press and
Publications Law (No. 8 of 1998) imposes a number
Categories: Releases