Campaign lobbying against work permits for temporary passport holders

AMMAN — A campaign was initiated this week to garner support against a recent decision by the government to “treat holders of temporary Jordanian passports as migrant workers”.

Ad-Dustour columnist Omar Kollab and several people affected by the decision launched the campaign, which targets decision makers and has garnered the support of several lawmakers.

A Cabinet decision announced last week requires Gazans living in Jordan and Palestinians holding a temporary passport (two or three years) to obtain a permit to be able to work in the Kingdom.

Although the decision was issued on December 24, it was only circulated last week. On Sunday, the Cabinet decided to exempt holders of temporary Jordanian passports from work permit and stamp fees, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The decision also includes any additional fees collected under the Labour Law.

“Holders of temporary passports are not migrants and they enjoy civil rights like any Jordanian,” Kollab told The Jordan Times, noting that this is the message of the campaign.

In Jordan there are 1 million holders of temporary passports, 150,000 of whom are Gazans and the rest are Palestinians who do not have a national number after Jordan’s disengagement from the West Bank in 1989.

Some temporary passport holders have been living in Jordan since 1967.

According to Kollab, 20 lawmakers have already signed a petition, as part of the campaign, calling for amending the Labour Law.

Although Gazans are refugees, as holders of temporary passports they are legally treated as “state subjects, which means they have civil rights but not political ones”, the columnist said.

Before this decision, he noted, Gazans used to be asked to obtain security clearance when they apply to work in certain sectors, even for enrolling in schools.