Women need equal access to retirement salaries — JNCW

AMMAN — A leading women’s organisation has called for ensuring equal access to retirement salaries for families of deceased wives.

Jordanian National Commission for Women (JNCW) Secretary General Salma Nims said the demands are part of a list that was prepared by the commission and other women’s groups.

“We believe that there is a need to review the SSC law within its totality to ensure that a woman’s contribution to the SSC would be given to her family in the case of her death,” Nims told The Jordan Times.

She added that some women work all their lives and when they die their families “do not have access to their retirement salary unless their husbands can prove that they are unable to work and earn an income”.

On the other hand, the wife of a deceased man can obtain his retirement salary, Nims said.

Nims referred to another discriminatory clause in the SSC that deprives divorced or widowed women of accessing the retirement salaries of their fathers and husbands.

Last month, Director General of the Social Security Corporation (SSC) Hazem Rahahleh was quoted as saying that based on previous experiences, the social security system showed some gaps that required urgent solutions.

Rahahleh stressed that the SSC seeks to draft a law “that can guarantee social equality and solidarity”. 

The SSC has been organising discussions with civil groups in various governorates to discuss its planned amendments to the SSC law, with officials stressing that social security is the responsibility of all.