Part of this post part is of a reseearch that I published in venture Magazine in July 2007 (I think). The article is called out of Sync. I have chosen parts of it for today’s post.This article was heavely edited… so don’t be surprisedif it looks professional!

            The question of labour rights is something that has been constantly on my mind lately. Mostly because I have recently joint the labour force in Jordan… well obviously I am not in the blue collar sector. I have a highly respectable position at a highly respectable sector. However being one of  millions of people who earn their living by doing actual work,  makes me wonder what the situation is in the blue collar sector if this is how it is in the white collar sector.

           I have several thoughts that I would like to share in the coming few months,  but today I would like to start at a very safe place: the culture of shame.

           I am one of those who don’t believe in the culture of shame. I add my voice to those who claim that this is an expression invented by the government to cover their failure to solve concrete problems, such as unemployment, low wages and human rights violations; and what better exit  than blame the people?

Picture taken from my window

Decoding the “Culture of Shame”

           In a study conducted by the Ministry of Labour a few years, the disconnect between available Jordanian jobseekers and vacant jobs is addressed partly as a logistical challenge, and partly an entrenched social reality.

            “This mismatch comes from the geographical distance between job opportunities and job seekers,” said Ghada Salem, (She was an economic researcher at the Ministry of Labour, as well as a Procurement Officer at the World Bank when this article was originally wrote). The research also shows that the general impression is that the productivity of Jordanians is lower than the productivity of foreign workers. Not only that, but that Jordanians have higher expectations from job opportunities in terms of benefits and positions. “Sometimes even if there are opportunities, it is difficult to find Jordanians who are willing to take up these jobs, partly because of their expectations and partly because of the culture,” said Salem.

           In one of the projects that I managed a few years ago; I was faced with a situation that almost  made me fall in the trap of believing in the culture of shame. The project was  a 24-month experimental initiative aiming to link unemployed women with work opportunities through helping them understand their own skills using the portfolio of competences model.  

            The project hasn’t been simple. Local training coordinator Mrs. Ibdah from Wadi Al Rayan in Northern Ghor told Venture, “These women do not want to work. Don’t waste your breath on them.”

           The program had administered an eight week skills training to 30 women for jobs in local textile factories in Irbid, and I couldn’t understand why the women declined jobs after completing training. “They all were very excited about the possibility of steady income less than a week ago,” Ibdah  said. “Now that we have found them opportunities in the textile industry, most of them used their male kin as an excuse for not working in the factories.”

            The negative perception of working in factories is not uncommon; as research conducted by the Economic Research Unit at the Centre for Strategic Studies (CSS) of the University of Jordan showed that Jordanians refuse to work at a number of jobs.  69 percent of the unemployed in Jordan refuse to work as agricultural workers, 82 percent refuse to work in construction, 79 percent as building guards, 71 percent as messengers for companies and 75 percent would not work as waiters.

           Whilst these attitudes may seem arbitrary, the research shows that a clear majority of the unemployed males would accept these jobs (with the exception of cleaning) at a salary of 200JD per month. The study suggests that the primary aversion of these jobs is not the commonly referenced Jordanian “culture of shame,” but the meagre financial returns associated with these sectors.

           This is one important explanation for the challenges presented by the women of Wadi Al Rayan. After internal research, participants admitted that some of their reluctance to work is related to transportation fees that they have to bear in order to travel to their work places in Irbid. “I will take home about 100 JDs after all the deductions, the bus from al Wadi to Irbid costs around 120 Piasters everyday. This leaves me with about 70 JD at the end of the month,” said Mrs. Khateeb, one of the target women. “It is just not worth it.”

Insecurity Kills the Economy

          Low wages alone don’t tell the whole story. Poor benefits, a perceived lack of stability and difficult working conditions also drive a wedge between Jordanians and growth industry jobs. Many unemployed simply don’t have faith in the private sector’s ability to provide for them and their families.

            Construction is such an example. Despite the fact that 23.8 percent of the labour force is in construction, Jordanian participation has declined almost 50 percent between 1987 and 2003, due to unattractive salaries and working conditions. Today, the vast majority of those currently working in this sector are non-Jordanians.

           According to a study by the European Training Foundation, the overwhelming majority of business enterprises in Jordan are small: 94 percent have four or fewer workers. And few small companies can match the benefits of being employed in the public sector. “I can be sacked any time in the private sector, but in the public sector, I have both the stability and the benefits,” said Mahmoud Abdallah, an unemployed young man from Irbid.

            Insecurity is one of the most prominent reasons cited by the Wadi Al Rayan target women. In order to take a job in the Irbid factories, the women needed to surrender a significant portion of their guaranteed National Aid income. In the end, this proved unattractive.

             Dr. Ahmad Kafawen (was the general manager of the National Aid Fund at the time) explained that a household of five or more receives a monthly allowance JD156.  If the head of the family starts working, this allowance will be decreased by the amount of the monthly salary. This means that if a woman heads a family, she will actually take home less money—after transportation costs—than if she stayed at home. Furthermore, there is a clear government policy that if a woman refuses a job opportunity, she would lose her national aid anyway. The result is that most women do not attempt to look for jobs. 

             Perhaps this helps explain the appeal of the public sector and the Armed Forces. The jobs are considered very stable, and the benefits offered are attractive; including social security, retirement plans and health insurance, for both the worker’s nuclear family and parents.

               “Young men work at the factories temporarily, they stay around till they get a job in the public sector, and they take them, even if the payment is less,” said Mohamed Injadat, General Manager of a textile factory in one of the QIZs in Al-Ghor. “They feel that jobs at the public sector are more secure.”

 Domestic Disturbance

              The vast majority of domestic helpers in Jordan are non-Jordanians. According to a new report by the Ministry of Labour’s information and studies department, the number of legal domestic helpers in the country is just over 38,000, of which some 18,000 are Indonesians, 11,000 from Philippines, 8,000 Sri Lankans and 350 Egyptians. Jordanians avoid this growth sector for many reasons, but most prominent are deep-seated concerns about working conditions. (I wonder how relevant is the resistance from several countries, such as India, SriLanka, Philppines… etc to send domestoc workers to Jordan related to the working conditions? I think, this was coming eventually)

             As current Jordanian labour law excludes domestic workers, plentiful circumstantial evidence suggests that they are rife for mistreatment. Article Three of the National Labour Law states that “servants who are working for houses, their gardens, their cooks…and those of similar capacity,” are excluded, explains Mr. Amjad Wishah, Director of Migrant Workers Directorate. 

            He says the exemption aims to preserve the private nature of the home: “It is difficult to send inspectors to supervise the labour in private houses. However, we are aware of the problems that rise from the current situation; we are working on a mechanism to include them in the law while respecting the home’s privacy.”

            The exemption has understandable impacts on Jordanians’ willingness to be domestic workers, says Assem Rababa’a, Head of Aballah, a human rights organization advocateing for Arab rights in Israel. “The nature of work, which requires women to sleep at the employer’s house, long hours, low financial returns and the fear of abuse are all reasons why Jordanians don’t allow their daughters to work in this sector.”

             Faced with low salaries, the home governments of domestic workers in Jordan are stepping in. The Philippines Ministry of Labour has increased the pay scale of domestic workers to $400 a month effective March 2007. Louisa Reyes, a Welfare Officer at the Embassy of Philippines in Amman, pointed out that when the salaries were first increased, the government hoped that families who could afford a larger salary would be more educated, thus decreasing the likelihood of abuse of Filipina workers. 

           Physical, psychological and verbal abuse is alarmingly common, according to Reyes. “Of the complaints we get [from domestic workers], 40 to 50 percent …are about physical abuse. And another 10 to 15 percent are about sexual abuse.”

                 To investigate the life of a foreign domestic worker is to delve into unpleasant stories. The Embassy hears complaints that live-in domestic workers are rarely allowed to leave the house, visit their friends or go for a walk. It’s not unheard of in Jordan that they are even locked up in empty apartments. In some cases, families (and/or employment agencies) go as far as confiscating the domestic worker’s passport, further hindering their ability to defend themselves.

Clever Can Go a Long Way

           The labour crisis in Jordan is forcing organizations to find innovative solutions. One example comes from the NGO community. In response to the difficulties presented by the Labour law exemption, one project is training Jordanian women to be domestic workers, but avoiding private homes altogether. Izdihar, funded by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, focuses on professional office cleaning. By avoiding domestic settings, the project faces the “culture of shame” that hinders the free movement of women from conservative areas and implying disrespect for manual and blue-collar work.

              Izdihar attracts unskilled women, trains them for 4 months and then certifies them. “We are starting training course number twelve,” said Nawal Khalil, the Project Coordinator. “85 percent of our trainees find jobs, mostly in hospitals and hotels, however families still do not allow their daughters to work in houses,” she said. Once these women were given favourable wages, social security and health insurance, resistance from their families faded.

              The Greater Amman Municipality found an ingenious solution to workers’ reluctance to work in the sanitary sector. Mr. Ali al-Askar, Deputy Manager for the District Affairs at the Municipality pointed out that the Municipality needed new strategies to encourage Jordanians to work in the sector. First, the city changed the job title for sanitation workers, from Cleaning Officer to National Officer. By locating employees’ regular routes neighbourhoods other than their own removed much of the stigma of their work. These changes, coupled with a small increase in salaries and monthly productivity awards dealt with a major taboo. 

            Mr. al-Askar said that the Municipality does not have exact figures, but he says the shortage in the number of sanitation workers has eased.

            GAM’s successes don’t discount the notion that big initiatives may be required in other sectors. With efficient implementation, the impact of the Ministry of Labor’s new plan to recruit 30,000 unskilled workers—via the Army—for training in the construction sector could make waves throughout the industry. The plan calls for trainees to receive all the benefits afforded to military personnel during the project’s duration.

              This will provide Jordanian unemployed youth with the sense of security they search for, when they are seeking employment, and in the long term, they will have more benefits if they stayed with the armed forces,” said Shawkat Ababneh, the Deputy Manager for the National Training and Employment Center.

Source:  Centre for Strategic Studies (CSS) of the University of Jordan

  It took me a long time to convince Um Yazan to write about her problem.  She finally did.  You can read the article on 7iber.

I came across this lady in one of the lectures that have been organized through the project Citizen in my City project, in one of the local communities. I won’t mention what community, because she specifically asked me to keep all these details confidential.

I will go back to Um Yazan in a bit, but now, I will give a brief about the lecture, so that people understand the background.

The lecture was about violence in general. However, the lecturer spoke a lot about sexual harassment.  She was explaining to parents why their kids would not approach them if they were facing issues of this sort in their lives. 

“ if your kids tell you they did bad in an exam, and your reaction was to take the slipper and throw at it them, they would start thinking that if my mom did this with something silly, what would she do with there is something shameful involved?”

I thought she had a good point there. She encouraged women to get their children to talk to them, even if what they is childish and silly. This will increase the chances of children talking…. I am not sure how true this is… but I think children can slip when they are younger… however when they get older, it becomes more and more difficult to talk about things like that with parents…. but Ya3ni… it does not harm. On the contrary it definitely helps.

Um Yazan’s Predicament

Um Yazan happened to be in one of those lectures… she went blank in the middle of the lecture… she approached the lecturer afterwards in a panic mode… she had realized what was happening to her son yazan (an assumed name). 

For the longest time, she was not sure what to do about the change in his behaviour.  He stopped eating, became edgy and angry and became aggressive with his siblings… but what puzzled her most was his persistence on wearing very shabby clothes! She knew something was wrong but could never decipher the signs.

When she talked to the lecturer, she started crying helplessly… she said that she suspected something bad was happening to her son… she could not even bring herself to give it a name. ..

After that, things moved quickly, she launched an investigation at the school with the support of the right channels, and did what was needed…

It turned out that her son was being harassed by an older student … (a kid himself), whom in turn was being harassed by someone older somewhere in his own neighbourhood! The story was really shocking! Victims turn into predators… I think maybe it is a normal human outcome! And honestly, who know maybe that would have been Yazan’s future?

 Yazan is being helped by a counsellor now… and the other kid too…everyone is a victim in this story… and hopefully they will start leading normal lives now.

 Going public?

As I was involved in the story from the beginning, I was trying to convince um Yazan to go public with the story. Bring the issue into the spot light… but she refused stubbornly…

Honestly she had a good point.

 She explained that they come from a very conservative background. If this was happening to a girl, it would be a shame and end of story. But if it is a boy… (and here is the surprise)  it is double shame! He will be accused of not being a real man (which is silly, since he is only 11), he will start being bullied in the street and in the school… but worse… the family will start abusing them… I don’t even know where to start if I want to explain the complexities there… sisters in law, brother in law, cousins… competition, jealousy, favouritism, inheritance, gossip…

ya3ni… going public will only open Pandora’s box.

Heavy negotiations took place between her and her husband… she was angry and wanted to do something….the husband agreed to seek help, but refused to go public… his concern was that this will stigmatize their son. His opinion was that now that the boy is being treated, khalas they can move to a different neighbourhood, change schools, and start fresh. Basically, give the boy a chance to put this in the past and move on….

But if they went public…this will be the most important thing about their son forever…. and since their community is very small, he will never be anonymous, he will always be remembered as the boy who was harassed at school.

Yazan’s parents explained…that their duty is to help their son and not save whole world…they won’t be able to, they said realistically….

This is why I appreciate her writing the article.

I sympathize with them, and with the hundreds of families who suffer from similar issues in silence…

I had a workshop that revolved around creating a community center there.  The discussion went into the direction of public gardens… since Sahab community was complaining about the lack of public spaces for children. A lady there said that the problem is not in the gardens themselves… even if there are gardens, she (as a mother) would not send her children to a public garden, since there is a lot of drugs activity going on there. …

Obviously that did not go well… people slaughtered her! They were so upset about her accusations for a number of reasons… maybe that she was a woman, maybe that we are not local and it felt like she was showing dirty laundry…. Does not matter…what matters is that public spaces have been used as ideal spaces for predators.

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I got the idea in one of those days that my sisters and I took the kids to a local park… We try to take them to a park on daily basis… truth to be known is that we don’t take them because of any brilliant maternal skills… but that is the most effective way to exhaust the kids to make sure they are in bed as early as possible…!

The thing is… I had noticed that whenever I go to a public garden, ….the demography of adults is something like: 6 Indonesian women,  5 Philippians,  4 Srilankan, one or two Europeans… No Jordanian women what so ever… European women go to public gardens to spend quality time with their children, Arab women send their maids to spend quality time with their children.

That particular day, there was a suspicious teenager going around, he would look for young children that are alone and just come close to them… with the maids busy socializing with each other and the mothers busy elsewhere doing whatever that they are doing… very young children are left vulnerable to pedophiles, drug predators, and other kinds of predators…

That particular day, my sister, who noticed this guy went to him and yelled her lungs out, questioning him on what he was doing,  threatening to get the security guard… upon hearing this, the guy dissolved in oblivion… We never saw him again…

So basically, the presence of one responsible local adult, could save the future of a few children… whose duty or fault is it? Government? Predators? Children? Families?  Or us locals who lack any sense of social responsibility and sense of belonging….. ? I wonder….

Speaking of different nationalities and cultures, I have recedntly watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding, for the 18the time  probably… I still think it is the funniest movie ever made. It is sweet, hilarious and completely relevant.….

Teta is one of the most intelligent people I have dealt with in my life. And even though I had serious issues with her growing up, I cannot but admire this very tough lady.  She is pushing me to go for a masters degree and told me that she had to leave school at 11 because back then,  it was not very well viewed for girls in her social class to go to school…

She got married at 14…

One day my grandfather, a very strict man, came home and found her reading a magazine….

Ohhh boy!

What a fit he threw, he told her if he ever, in his lifetime, saw her reading a book again, he was going to divorce her.  She challenged him” Then, I will have to wait till you die to go back to school!!!”

She could never forget that. After he died, and when the mourning period passed, my grandmother got dressed one day, and went to a nearby literacy school…  She enrolled herself in a class. And went there on a daily basis till 8^th grade.

Honestly, she does not read much, but she says that it made her feel very proud to say she can pick up a book, the Qur’an usually,  and be able to read it on her own.

What my grandmother has done with her very simple means is simply amazing.  She managed to built a house in Jabal al webdeh with money that she saved one penny at a time… She was there, helping the men building, she was there carrying and supporting and working, since my grandfather was really sick at the time….

She could not rest, till all her daughters received the proper education, she thought they deserved. She fought for their education, despite of everyone who told her that it was shameful.  She married them off to men she chose for them (with their consent) she did not allow the family to control her daughters’ fate.

She made a promise to have all her sons study medicine… she sent them abroad, and suffered of deprivation and hunger and sadness… but managed to fulfil her holy promise.

My grandmother is one of many Palestinian women, who have been through a lot to rebuild their shattered lives…they all managed to do it with their simple means…

I always admire strong  capable women, and when look around me, I realize I am the surrounded by  strong women… and I just want them to know that I am very proud of them all