New gains for female employees [Archives:2008/1132/Local News]
Nadia Al-Sakkaf
SANA'A, Feb. 24 ) Several legal amendments have been approved by the Labor and Social Affairs Committee in Parliament and will be forwarded to Parliament for ratification in order for them to be enacted. The approved amendments include article 20 of the 1991 Insurance and Wages Law 25. The amendment defines a woman's retirement age as 60 years old, the same as men, while giving women the option of an early retirement at 55 provided they have been in service for at least 15 years. “This is an achievement for women because it means their participation in the public sphere could be extended and they won't be forced into retirement once they reach 55 years of age. There are many skilled women over 55 and it would be a waste to prevent them from continuing to be productive,” said Hooria Mashoor, deputy chairperson of the Women's National Committee (WNC), the main body concerned with amending discriminatory laws against women.
Another amendment stipulated that men and women can receive the pensions of their deceased spouse, according to article 60 of the same law.
The amendments also added more requirements to be fulfilled by business owners for pregnant employees so as to take required measures to protect them from radiation, vibrations and noise and air pressure risks. Additionally, a pregnant employee retains the right to compensation and treatment if she or her unborn child are subjected to any kind of risk or health hazard. The amendments come during a national campaign to eliminate discriminative laws against women in Yemeni legislation, led by the Women's National Committee.
The committee discussed the mentioned amendments with concerned Yemeni authorities, including the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, legal consultants working in the project and members of civil society. The WNC has campaigned for amending 61 discriminative articles against women since 2004. Most of these articles are in the Personal Status Law.
Before the amendments could be forwarded to Parliament for discussion and approval, they have to be endorsed by the Supreme Council for Women and the Cabinet. In July 2007, the Cabinet approved most of the amendments, leaving out requests relating to women's political participation, and forwarded the endorsed list of amendments to Parliament, which promised to give the amendments high priority in its program this year. In 2003 Parliament approved five of fifteen amendments that were advocated by the WNC legal team since 2000. The approved amendments include giving equal treatment for children of a Yemeni woman from a non-Yemeni father, taking better care of pregnant and nursing female prisoners, giving mothers the right to register the birth of their children and allowing women to ask for divorce if their husbands were discovered to have certain critical diseases.
Since then, however, no amendments to the discriminatory laws have been achieved. Freedom House, an independent organization concerned with human rights, referred the existence of such discriminatory laws to women's limited access and minor participation in judicial institutions, as the majority of legislators and law enforcement agents are men. While the 1994 constitution stipulates that all citizens are equal in rights and duties, a number of Yemeni laws, regulations, and policies discriminate against women, particularly those governing women's rights in the family, created by Yemeni legislators under the pretext of Islamic shari'a. For example, women have fewer rights than men in Yemen's Personal Status Law, which governs matters of marriage, divorce, child custody, and inheritance.
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