Daycare centres at workplaces gaining momentum

AMMAN — Working mother of three Rania Kayali is one of the biggest beneficiaries of a crèche that opened at her workplace, since her newborn baby is close to her.

“It is such an amazing feeling to know that your child is safe next to you at work and you do not have to worry about him or about coming late to work,” noted Kayali, human resource director at International Academy of Amman (IAA).

Kayali was speaking on Wednesday during the closing ceremony of phase one of SADAQA's "Daycare in my company" project, implemented in cooperation with the Labour Ministry and supported by the Netherlands embassy in Amman.

Launched in 2011, SADAQA is a campaign run by 12 core team members who seek to promote friendlier working environments for women through the provision of daycare centres.  

Kayali said she started working at a company after graduating from university, but had to quit because she had twins.

“Three years later, I could no longer stay at home and wanted to work in addition to taking care of my twins,” she told the audience.

Kayali said the IAA did not have a daycare centre when she started working there, “but when SADAQA was established we approached the school administration and they were convinced by the idea and the crèche opened in November last year.”

Labour Ministry Secretary General Hamada Abu Nijmeh said the ministry played a big role in implementing Article 72 of the Labour Law, which requires companies that have 20 or more female employees with a total of 10 children under the age of four to provide an adequate daycare centre supervised by trained personnel. 

“The law existed for the longest time but civil society and companies had no interest in implementing it,” Abu Nijmeh said, noting that the ministry contacted 900 establishments that “fall under the guidelines of Article 72 and urged them to adhere to it or face legal prosecution”.

SADAQA and the Labour Ministry have teamed up over the past three years to raise awareness on the importance of establishing daycare centres by visiting establishments and educating them on how it should be done.

Zeinab Shawabkeh, human resource director at Rich Pine Factory in Irbid, said the team visited her firm and asked them to open a crèche.

“They told us that we should implement Article 72… we were not convinced at all but attended one of their workshops and realised that it was not as difficult and complicated as we thought it would be,” Shawabkeh told the gathering.

She said the daycare centre, set to open next week, “will surely increase the number of working women at our factory.”

Meanwhile, MP Adnan Sawaeer (Amman, 7th District) pledged to lobby the Lower House to amend the Labour Law, which he said is old and has many discriminatory clauses against women.

“We have reviewed the Labour Law repeatedly, and in my opinion some articles should be added and others should be amended if we want to ensure equality for women,” Sawaeer stressed.

Women’s participation in the labour market remains low, and the lack of nurseries at workplaces is one of the reasons, SADAQA core team member Randa Naffa said, citing beliefs and traditions that still object to women’s economic participation, costly transportation, harassment and unequal wages as other reasons.

Since the campaign started, 162 companies employing more than 100 women were targeted and 23 have taken steps to provide daycare, according to Naffa. 

“With the establishment of these in addition to the existing ones, I estimate that we would reach around 35 per cent of working women with children in the labour market,” she said.  

The SADAQA campaign focuses on textile factories, banks, telecos and educational institutes because they have the highest percentage of female employees. 

SADAQA core team member Sahar Aloul told The Jordan Times at the event that the following phase of the project will target more companies and provide them with the necessary help to open crèches. 

“We also continue to lobby for amendments to Article 72 and facilitate coordination between the Labour Ministry and the organisations,” Aloul said. 

Labour Minister Nidal Katamine, who presented certificates to institutes that opened or are in the process of opening daycare centres, acknowledged that the ministry “was a bit slow in urging firms to apply Article 72”.

“It is our fault that companies are not applying this clause but now we are in close contact with the private sector and we hope we can convince them to establish daycare centres on order to increase the number of women in the labour market,” Katamine said at the end of the ceremony.