Jordan Women
In the month of the woman, we continue with the coverage of gender issues.
UNIFEM's report on the Status of Jordanian Women: Demography, Economic Participation, Political Participation and Violence, showed that while many strides were made to enhance women's rights through improved legislation and greater advocacy, progress will continue to be hampered by gender inequities, Jordan Times reported. That women in the Middle East live in grave inequality is not surprising, what made the news is that this inequality is statistically recorded.
According to the report, physical abuse was 42 per cent of all forms of abuse in 2002. Educated women were however less susceptible to acts of violence, with this segment constituting only 1 per cent of physical abuse victims. Interestingly, while physical aggression decreased from 20 per cent in 1998 to 10 per cent in 2002, the percentage of sexual aggression increased from 61 per cent to about 88 per cent in 2000.
While women's economic activity nearly doubled from 3.3 per cent to 7.7 per cent between 1979 and 2002, their economic participation continues to lag behind that of males. Data shows that women continue to look for jobs longer, their unemployment rate is higher and face discrimination at the workplace. Also, women are largely employed in the sectors of education (41 per cent) and health (18 per cent), and are rarely venturing into other fields.
Although, Jordanian culture is changing slowly, the liberalization is most likely to continue at the same rate: Data found that 45 per cent of parents continue to regard sons as being more important than daughters but more importantly, 37 per cent of the Jodanian youth aged between 10-24 years agree with that attitude.
Read more about the plight of Middle Eastern women: UNIFEM Arab Women Connect