An “unsafe environment” for women with disabilities at work...no legal guarantees

During my years at a mall in Amman, I was verbally harassed by some taxi drivers, "Hend Abu Shmatt sums up her experience in getting to work as a girl with a motor disability. Hend is a girl who has fallen victim to the prevailing stereotypes about girls with disabilities, facing all the obstacles that limit her access to work in security and peace, commenting, “The harassment I suffered on my way to work on public transportation, and the psychological reflection of inappropriate behavior by some in the public street, have been the most threatening to my job security.” ".Abushmatt recounts her experience in the work environment as a girl with a motor disability “a work place that was fully equipped for persons with disabilities and because I have been working in the same place for fifteen years so my colleagues at work are used to supporting me.” She describes the experience of a girl with disabilities to go into practical reality “a high-risk experience and a lack of more preparation and awareness for people of the rights of the worker and good dealing with it. Harassment in people with disabilities is a familiar behavior

“I didn’t take any judicial action on what happened to me before because harassment is an act that many do with people with disabilities,” Abu Shammat commented on why she does not sue those who tried to harass her, stressing that society views girls with disabilities as prey that is easy to harm, and this has forced many families and girls with disabilities not to go to the labor market for fear of being harassed in the work environment. Sarah (a pseudonym), a woman with motor disabilities, recalls her experience as a junior high teacher in a public school with regret and discrimination over the reality of women with disabilities in the working environment. “She was prevented several times by the head teacher from using the school’s sanitary facilities, despite being informed about my state of health, because she was authoritarian and considers that any non-disabled teacher is more entitled than I am to the job, and that having an obstacle to female students and taking five minutes late in class could put female students at a disadvantage” “I was humiliated and excluded from many training opportunities by the principal because I was sometimes five minutes late for class because of my health status,” she continues, which made me think many times about leaving my government job, because these words have many psychological implications for my work performance. “She was clearly and officially discriminated against by a number of governmental and even private bodies,” and the most remarkable of these jobs was to be rejected by her, her advancement to a position in business accelerated entrepreneurs and promising companies “that embrace and claim an inclusive and pioneering environment approach to rights.” Employers not only refuse but also insult

“Not only do employers end up being rejected, but the ability of a girl with disabilities is underestimated by asking her are you sure you are competent to apply for this job?” , adding that women with disabilities were discriminated against in a double way in the work environment as a girl and as a person with disabilities.

In accordance with article 25 (a) of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act No. 20 of 2017, which states that "a person may not be excluded from work or training on the basis of disability, and that disability in itself is not a bar to the continuation of such work."Despite the fact that international conventions and domestic laws have limited the exclusion and discrimination of persons with disabilities, Jordan was one of the first countries to ratify the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2008, and there are many provisions condemning inhumane work with persons with disabilities. However, in practice, article 15 of the Convention provides that States shall not be subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment Parties to all effective legislative, administrative, judicial and other measures to prevent persons with disabilities from being subjected, on an equal basis with others, to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Disabled people’s rights activist Rowan Barakat has recently experienced a growing number of disabilities in the Labour market, and all these challenges are marked by a clear lack of rights. For example, instead of signing a work contract with social security, contracts are taken daily so that people with disabilities do not get a fixed work contract and it is easy to lose their jobs and be fired at any time. Many employers therefore seek to make the work environment jobless for persons with disabilities in order to exclude and limit opportunities for them, women and men alike, according to Barakat. Girls with “intellectual and hearing” disabilities are the most harassed in the work environment

Barakat goes on to mention the environmental safety in the work of a girl with disabilities, saying, “Most of those who are harassed at work are women with intellectual disabilities, who dare people to harm her under the pretext that she is a girl who is mentally incapacitated and incapacitated, or on a girl with hearing disabilities who is considered unable to express what happened to her.” Barkaat considers that many parents of girls with disabilities who fear harassment or are harassed by their daughters are among the constraints on their access to the work environment. The reasons for the unsafe working environment of women with disabilities are a lack of policies to protect their right to work environment, a lack of specific training for girls on harassment and how to deal with it, and a lack of documentation mechanism to protect the rights of these girls with disabilities. She adds that there is essentially no law condemning harassment of women with disabilities.

The idea of harassment of girls with disabilities and the provision of an inclusive health environment for them at work is attributed to a number of issues, the most important of which is the responsibility of official bodies to raise the legal awareness of their workers and to raise the awareness of all working communities. She explains the psychological impact of an inclusive work environment on girls with disabilities: “The psychological harm to girls with disabilities is significant and may cause concerns in their family life if they are harassed, harassed or humiliated, often resulting in the loss of a competent workforce.” Barakat emphasizes that it is the responsibility of a number of official bodies to provide legal, practical, environmental and psychological education to persons with disabilities, notably the Ministry of Labour, the High Council for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, civil society institutions and employers themselves.Article 27 (a), entitled Work and employment, of the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities provides that “discrimination on the basis of disability shall be prohibited in all matters relating to all forms of employment, including conditions of employment, appointment and work, continuity of work, career advancement and safe and healthy working conditions”, and also article 27 (b) “Protection of the rights of persons with disabilities to just and favourable working conditions on equal terms with others, including equal opportunities and equal remuneration for work of equal value, and conditions of work” Safe and healthy, including protection from harassment, redress of grievances. According to Khaled Jomaa, the Labour Code regulates the relationship between male and female workers and employers are the legal umbrella to facilitate the Jordanian labor market.

Awareness is the partner of oversight in providing protection for women with disabilities at work

With regard to the importance of human rights awareness among persons with disabilities, human rights institutions and official and educational bodies are all responsible for raising the awareness of workers in general about the labor law and labor rights and the importance of the presence of persons with disabilities in the work environment, noting that the aforementioned has been noted in Law of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities No. (20) of 2017, as mentioned in paragraph “e” of Article (25), which states “Without prejudice to the academic or professional qualifications required by work or job, governmental and non-governmental agencies, which are not less than The number of workers and employees in any of them is less than (25) and not more than (50) workers and employees, employing at least one person from Persons with disabilities are included in its vacancies, and if the number of workers and employees in any of them exceeds (50) workers and employees, up to (4%) of its vacancies shall be allocated to persons with disabilities in accordance with what is decided by the Ministry of Labor.

Jumaa adds that the results of the inspection visits of the Ministry of Labor during 2018, which amounted to 183 inspection visits to private sector institutions to ensure the extent of the institutions’ commitment to the percentage allocated to persons with disabilities, showed the commitment of 28 institutions, while the number of violating institutions was 13, and the number of institutions that did not meet the conditions ( 142) Foundation.

He believes that the main problem faced by girls with disabilities in the labor market is the lack of job opportunities and the high unemployment rates among them. According to a paper issued by the Labor House Center, the percentage of Jordanians with disabilities reached 11.2% of the total Jordanian population aged five years and over, except The percentage of those employed is less than 1% of the total number of workers in the labor market in the public and private sectors, which increases the possibility of them falling into the framework of unemployment more due to their low chances of obtaining jobs and the absence of social protection umbrellas for them, in addition to the labor market losing their capabilities and abilities to develop the process Productivity due to negative stereotypes and discrimination.

The environment is not prepared to maintain the safety of women in the work environment

He lists the reasons for the absence of environmental safety for women with disabilities, saying, "The lack of infrastructure for institutions leads to a dilemma facing people with disabilities, as the vast majority of public transport vehicles do not accommodate them, and most buses are not equipped with wheelchair lifts, ramps, or priority seats for passengers with disabilities. disabilities, or audio-visual alert systems for persons with hearing or visual impairments.

Education and human rights empowerment is the basis for avoiding the exclusion of people with disabilities

On ways to reduce the phenomenon of discrimination or harassment and harassment of girls with disabilities in the work environment, Jumaa draws attention to the importance of raising societal awareness of the issues of the rights of persons with disabilities through the media, including issues of the rights of persons with disabilities in the educational system, and empowering families of girls with disabilities to motivate them to demand their rights since childhood, so that the child’s upbringing in a human rights environment enhances his ability to claim his rights and reject marginalization or exclusion on the basis of disability.

Gomaa continues his talk about ways to reduce harassment as a phenomenon, adding that "censorship ensures a friendly work environment for girls with disabilities and contributes to a greater understanding of the dilemmas and problems faced by persons with disabilities in the labor market, and through monitoring, institutions are able to obtain statistics and figures about th

e suffering of girls. of persons with disabilities and to form an image of the extent to which institutions are committed to implementing the Law on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The head of the Jordanian Workers’ House Center Hamada Abu Najma presents the legislative shortcomings regarding the privacy issues of women with disabilities in the work environment, and says, “There is nothing in the law that gives privacy to women in terms of occupational safety and health, except with regard to the so-called night work and some professions that prevent the employment of There are women in it, and this applies to everyone with and without disabilities, and women were not given protection without these two cases, and even no distinction was made between them and males except in this part.

He shows that the Labor Law did not talk about facilitating measures to access the labor market for persons with disabilities, but rather left this matter to the Law on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities issued for the year 2017, stressing that the Law of Persons with Disabilities condemned discrimination in the work environment for persons with disabilities.

Abu Najma adds that international labor standards contain clear agreements that speak of the rights of persons with disabilities, and that the Arab Labor Convention issued by the Arab Labor Organization, presented within Convention No. (17) of 1993 regarding the employment and rehabilitation of persons with disabilities in Article 7, “that each state take measures Which ensures that business owners take measures related to industrial security and occupational safety, as well as making the necessary modifications to production equipment and tools on which persons with disabilities work, in a way that secures their lives and makes it easier for them to perform their work.

While regarding to work environments that are friendly to women with disabilities, he "confirms that most work environments are not friendly to people with disabilities and are not commensurate with their health conditions, and that work sites often do not have any facilities for the worker to settle in his workplace," adding that the difficulties of public transportation for girls' access For people with disabilities, their work is the most important obstacle facing people with disabilities.

 

 

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