Despite the fact that women are pillars in the familial structure and contribute to paying the expenses of the household, they still face several obstacles and suffer from various abuses in the workplace. Such violations include being fired or not being hired for being pregnant, and receiving a lower salary than that of their male counterparts, or a salary that falls beneath the minimum wage.

Palestine Economy Council

Translated by: Tamara Barakat

The Social and Economic Policies Monitor (Marsad) highlighted the most significant violations that women face in the labor market, the most important of which is receiving salaries that fall below the minimum wage. Such violations occur despite the fact that women have become main providers for their families, especially with the increasing number of killings, imprisonment, and injuries of Palestinian men at the hands of the Israeli occupation.

Data published by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics reveals that 10.6% of families are headed by women, 11.7% of which reside in the West Bank, and 8.4% in the Gaza Strip.

The Marsad focused in its study, titled “Workers without Wages…Women in Informal Work,” on female employees working in institutions in the informal work sectors, located in the south of the West Bank. It specifically highlights the case of women working in tailor workshops. The Marsad attempts, through the study that it presented for discussion, to connect the violations to the rights of women to governmental policies in order to enhance and develop them.

The study was presented during a meeting held in the Red Crescent Society in Ramallah, on Monday, in the presence of the study’s researcher Iyad Al-Ribahi, the Head of the Occupational Health and Safety Department, Firas Abu Hammad, Mahmoud Ziyadeh from the Federation of Independent Trade Unions, Mohammed Jawabreh from the Progressive Labor Union Action Front, and the Head of the Gender Unit in the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Hebron, Rula Qafisheh.

The study’s researcher from the Social and Economic Policies Monitor, Iyad Al-Ribahi, said that women are in great need for employment, especially in our difficult circumstances, and their rights start being violated from as early on as from the job interview. Women are not hired for being married and they are fired from their jobs once they become pregnant because the employer does not want bear the burden of giving them a maternity leave.

Al-Ribahi explored the weakness of the law in providing protection to working women, and said that the minimum wage law has not been applied by private companies until now. Also, there are no competent labor courts, and litigation periods in courts last for a very long time, which does not encourage women to file lawsuits to gain their rights. He also thinks that there is a problem in the Ministry of Labor’s inspection and supervision mechanisms on institutions. Moreover, there is also a weakness in trade unions since only 22% of employees are union members. And it is difficult for women who receive low salaries to join the Social Security Fund since they are unable to bear any additional expenses.

During the meeting, a video was displayed showing women being subjected to violations in the workplace. It was clear that many of the women in the video were afraid to demand their rights, and that their salaries fell below the minimum wage.

Abu Hammad emphasized that this is a very important issue, especially since the Ministry started implementing “appropriate work conduct” policies two years ago. He affirmed that there is a big problem in the supervision on institutions in the informal work sector, resulting from the lack of available inspectors in the Ministry and also from the difficulty in reaching all female workers since they use their own homes as their workplace. Additionally, there is a cultural problem among employers and employees related to the Labor Law and workers’ rights.

Furthermore, Jawabreh said that the inefficiency of Unions in defending the workers results from the low rates of membership to these unions. He also thinks that the Government’s measures favor the capital owners rather than the workers.

He explained that 20% of women are given maternity leave, 53% of women are employed without having a work contract, 19% of women are employed based on oral agreements, and only 19% of women receive end of service benefits.

Jawabreh also said that the Union is unable to force employers to raise the salaries of the workers when they fall below the minimum wage, but at the same time, it assures them that if they agree to be hired with such a pay, they will receive the difference between their pay and the minimum wage when they are given their end of service benefits.

Also, Qafisheh presented the achievements of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Hebron, in supporting women and including them in the Chamber through the Gender Unit that she established two years ago.

She said that the number of members in the Unit increased in two years from 50 to 350 women, all of whom have their own business activities.