You are here

Local organisation calls for supporting childcare sector financially

By Rana Husseini - Apr 01,2020 - Last updated at Apr 01,2020

AMMAN – A local organisation on Wednesday called on the government to take concrete action to help the childcare sector financially who are “hit the most” with the recent COVID-19 crisis.

There is low pay for this sector because it is undervalued because the society and the government do not appreciate the value of this sector, “which is becoming weaker by the day”, said SADAQA team member May Mansour.

“So imagine when the country is going through a crisis such as a COVID-19, which pushes this sector to the bottom of the government’s priorities,” Manour told The Jordan Times.

Mansour added that SADAQA prepared a position paper on the conditions of caregivers in nurseries during the disruption of the labour market to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.

We hope that the voices of caregivers are heard and their rights given to them through this paper, and our work in SADAQA will succeeded in healing this important sector in our society,” Mansour added.

“SADAQA organisation monitored the conditions of caregivers in nurseries of all kinds in the organised and unregulated sectors, including private and institutional nurseries, associations and home nurseries during the imposed curfew by the government,” according to Mansour.

The cities that were monitored included Zarqa, east and west Amman, Jerash, Ajloun, Deir Alla and Azraq, she added.

SADAQA conducted several interviews during work stoppage and found out that nursery caregivers are paid less than workers in other sectors that require similar levels of skills and qualifications, and on some occasions, less than the minimum wage, according to the position paper.

A large proportion of them work without contracts and are paid non-fixed wages, depending on the number of children they care for in registered or domestic nursery, according to the document.

In addition, the absence of legislation means that female workers in the care sector are often exposed to inadequate working conditions that do not respect their human rights or provide them with any kind of social protection through Social Security Corporation (SSC) contribution and other health insurances, the position paper said.

“In the current period during which Jordan is responding to the COVID-19 pandemic by completely halting work in this sector, as is the case in most government public and private sectors, we have found that childcare workers are suffering under compelling economic and social conditions due to income disruptions,” the position paper stated.

Most of the caregivers in the governorates do not have health insurance and some of them are not enrolled in the SSC and receive salaries that are less than the minimum wage.

Meanwhile, 75 per cent of the caregivers have not received their salaries for the past three months, mostly because the families that used to pay the nursery stopped paying salaries, the position paper added.

“The childcare sector requires urgent measures to be addressed by the concerned authorities to provide immediate protection for workers in this sector, which is mostly occupied by women, since this sector suffers from numerous economic distortions as well as labour and human rights violations,” Mansour concluded.

up
37 users have voted.


Newsletter

Get top stories and blog posts emailed to you each day.

PDF