The Empowerment of women and the equality with men has been a global issue since early period of time because empowerment is a very important issue in order to achieve development. The United Nations made huge efforts to integrate gender equality, they organized different conferences on women starting from 1975 to improve women’s rights however; the conference of Beijing in 1995 was the largest conference organized by the United Nations and was a turning point for gender equality. It was held to insure equal rights for all women without any discrimination; including giving women the right to participate in various aspects of life and access to decision-making positions (UN, 2009). In view of these international efforts to empower women it was necessary to Jordan to stand in line and empower Jordanian women, so amendments were made on many laws such as electoral law and municipality law to insure the access of women to political positions, but male domination remained one of the most important barriers facing women’s political empowerment, the problem is not in legislations, unfortunately, the problem stands in the application of these laws and legislations.
Recently, the role of Jordanian women in all walks of life became recognized and there has been seen increasing interest in all forms of female participation in the Jordanian society. There has been a debate about the importance of women’s role in the political and social life; women’s role is no longer domestic. Many important achievements were witnessed in recent years regarding women’s rights and the raising of women’s status in society. The number of Jordanian women increased in political life, women have recently obtained a number of their rights, represented in amendments to some laws (Majed, 2005). Jordanian women’s participation in political parties began during the 1950s but it was a very modest participation.
In 1954 a Jordanian women’s union was established under the leadership of the first Jordanian women lawyer Mrs. Emily Bisharat, Foremost among the union’s demands were giving the women the right to vote in elections, amending the Personal Statute Law and the Labor Law, and opening wider opportunities for women’s education and work. (Al.Jraibi, 2000).In response to the union’s demands the cabinet issued that women has the right to vote but not run for candidacy in 1955.(dababneh,2012) However this union was suspended in 1957 when the political parties had been banned and after the imposition of martial law in April 1957 (Al.Jraibi, 2000).
Although women were given the right to vote, that right was restricted to women with primary education and above and excluded a large number of women from voting. (Nahar, 2013). In 1974 Jordanian women were finally given the full right to vote and to stand for elections under the amendment of the electoral law no. (8). However, women did not participate in the elections because of the absence of the parliamentary life since 1974 until 1984. The national advisory council was established to fill the constitutional gap. Three councils were established. The first council was formed in 1978, the second national council was formed in 1980, and the third council was established in 1982 women worked side by side with men in the council and their participation was effective. This participation was a step towards the advancement of women’s role (Al.Shraah and Abaalzamat, 2012). In 1984 the parliamentary life returned, therefore the national advisory council was dissolved when the ninth parliament was summoned to an extraordinary session for amending a constitutional article. Jordan has started a new democratic transition and made important achievements in the parliamentary elections in 1989 when 12 women ran for the elections but none of them made it to the lower house when none of them received sufficient votes to gain any seat. Despite women’s loss; these elections were considered the first step towards breaking barriers for women. In 1993, only one out of the three female candidates who took part in the elections won and became the first female member of the Chamber of deputies in Jordan. In 1997, seventeen women candidates participated but none of them won. Jordanian women’s attempts during 1989, 1993 and 1997 only produced one seat in the parliament but through the amendment of the election law No. 34 of the year 2001, the government introduced six seat-women’s quota .The quota system provided by the amendment of the election Law enhanced women’s political participation and representation in the Jordanian parliament. The parliamentary elections of 2003 witnessed a change when the quota system was introduced. Four years later, in 2007 seven women were elected, six of them won through the quota system, while the seventh won the seat through direct competition. In 2010 According to the temporary Elections law the number of seats in the lower house was raised from 110 seats to 120 and the quota for women was raised to 12 seats. In 2010, in the 16th Parliament thirteen women were elected, 12 through the quota and one through direct competition in Amman’s 3rd District. (Nahar, 2013). In 2013, fifteen seats were allocated for women’s quota. The lower house has witnessed the arrival of (18) women to the parliament, two women were able to win through their constituencies, and one woman through the national list.
As for participation in the executive authority, HRH Princess Wijdan Ali was the first Jordanian woman to enter the Ministry of foreign affairs, and the first to represent Jordan at the United Nations in New York. Jordanian women had no share in the governments until 1979 when the first female minister Mrs. Inaam Al. Mufti was appointed as a minister of social development. In 1984 Mrs. Leila Sharaf was the second female minister, appointed as a minister of information. In 1993 a woman was appointed Minister of Industry and Commerce then Minister of Planning. In 1995, another woman was appointed Minister of Social Development. Thus, this was the first time when there were two women at the same time in the Government. In 1996, another woman was appointed in the government. At the beginning of the 1990’s number of women were appointed in high ranking positions such as heads of independent departments, secretaries general and governors. In 1997 a woman was appointed as a Secretary General of the Ministry of Administrative Development. In 1998 a woman was assigned as a Secretary General of the Ministry of Tourism. (Sweidan,2000). In 1999, the first woman was appointed as deputy prime minister. Jordanian women held ministerial positions which have been historically limited to men such as minister of planning and minister of industry and trade; Jordanian women proved their efficiency in these leadership positions.
As for women’s participation in the municipal councils, the first municipal council law was created in 1925, but women were only involved in 1980 when one woman was appointed in the municipal council for the first time. In 1986 a women was reappointed in the greater Amman municipality council. In 1982, municipalities’ law was amended and women were allowed to run for elections. Yet, Jordanian women remained distant from municipal councils, they only practiced this right in the year 1995 when the Ministry of Municipalities appointed 99 women for the different municipal councils in the Kingdom governorates (Dababneh, 2012) This successful experience proved that women were able to take part in the public life but it was a very modest participation, but this participation highly increased when 43 women ran for the municipal councils elections in 1999. Eight women won and 25 women were appointed in different councils in the governorates by the council of ministers. In 2007 the law of municipalities was amended, women were granted a quota system and were given 20% of the total seats in municipal councils; this has raised the number of women. (Dababneh, 2012)
As for women’s participation in the judicial authority, the first woman was appointed as a judge in 1996. Yet, only five out of 406 judges at the Ministry of Justice were women until the end of 1998. While for the first time, a female was appointed as Amman attorney general in 2010. (UNICEF, 2011) Female judges proved themselves in the judicial authority day by day and their number increased to 176 out of 973 in 2014. (Jordan times, 2015)
In spite of Jordan’s government reformist policies and attempts for adopting strategies to advance women on all levels, women’s political role and political participation did not reach a satisfactory level of improvement. This perhaps is due to many and complicated socio-economic factors. These factors are barriers to equal participation. Therefore Empowering Jordanian women and capitalizing on their capabilities is still needed in our society nowadays. The resources available for women, the negative perception of women and lack of belief in their abilities to assume leadership positions, as well as women’s level of awareness and realization of their roles, their self-confidence and belief in their equal rights with men as citizens might also be behind the very low participation of women (Dababneh, 2012). Therefore, Modifications must be made by the government and the Jordanian legislations in order to reach the desired participation of women. We need to change some existing laws that slow down women’s participation and create new laws that encourage women more and more to be a part of the political process because despite the progress in women’s political rights in Jordan, the representation of Jordanian women in the political process remains below the required level.
Significance of the Study
Despite government attempts to improve women’s political participation, it has not achieved the desired results. This study came to explore the actual status of women’s political participation and to reveal the factors affecting the political participation of women by shedding the lights on the Jordanian legislations through examining the effectiveness of implementing Human rights in the Jordanian Legal system, more specifically women’s political rights. The study will also provide some recommendations that could be useful in expanding the democratic transformation and development in Jordan. In addition, this study is concerned to develop a deeper understanding for the Jordanian society about the importance of women’s active participation in all fields of public affairs.
Purposes of the Study
The main aim of the study is to reveal Jordanian women’s attitudes towards women’s political Empowerment in the Context of Human Rights Legislations.
There are some secondary aims of the study which are:
– To shed light on an important issue related to the status of the political participation of Jordanian women in achieving equality of opportunities that Jordanian women seek to achieve.
– To analyze the impact of the Jordanian election laws and the quota system on the political empowerment of women.
– To explore the legal and socio-economic factors impacts on Jordanian women’s political participation, and the obstacles impeding women’s participation on the socio-economic levels.
– To explore the role of the governmental institutions and the (NGO) nongovernmental organizations in empowering women and enhancing their political participation.
Questions of the Study
The main question of the study is as follows:
Do human rights legislations affect the political empowerment of Jordanian Women?
The study will also attempt to answer a number of minor questions, these are:
– What is the status of women’s political participation?
– How is the women’s political empowerment being affected by the amendments of the Jordanian legislation laws?
– Is there any relationship between the socio-economic factors and women’s political participation?
– What is the role of the civil society’s organizations in the political empowerment of women?
Hypotheses of the study
The main hypothesis of this study is that the enhancement of human rights legislations in Jordan has improved women’s political empowerment.
Other minor hypotheses are:
– There has been a notable development in the Jordanian women’s political participation since 1989.
– The amendments of the Election Law in Jordan has positive impact on women’s political empowerment
– There are significant statistical differences for The political empowerment of Jordanian women in the context of human rights legislations and demographic characteristics; gender, educational level, monthly income, marital status, Party and Social Institute’s Memberships.
– The social and cultural factors influence women’s political participation.
– The economic factors influence women’s political participation.
– Civil Society’s organizations have played an important role in enhancing the political participation of women.
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