By Suhaila Zain Al-Abideen
The unemployment rate among Arab women is high despite a large number of women having college degrees. This is according to the World Bank. Female Arab participation in the workforce accounts for only 25 percent when in fact the number of women who act as sole breadwinners has risen and reached 12.5 percent. Some of these women support families with as many as five members. Moreover, most of them work in the private sector and do not get insurance, healthcare and other important perks.
What is worse is that many unemployed husbands rely on their working wives and do not have jobs. The wives work and take care of their children and husbands. This means they have a lot of responsibilities. In a 2011 United Nations report, the illiteracy rate among women aged 15 to 64 was 52 percent while the number of fathers who shirked the responsibility of providing for their families had dramatically increased. Also, the number of poor, abandoned and divorced women had gone up.
Undoubtedly, the segments of society that oppose women working have played a major role in exacerbating unemployment among women and reducing job opportunities and the types of work women can do. Apparently, the role of women in development has not been understood and recognized. Women are not given any major roles in the decision-making process that affects the national economy, leading to higher poverty among women.
It is important to protect women from poverty in order to maximize their opportunities to lead decent lives and safeguard their honor and integrity. More education opportunities should be provided to them in different specializations.
Fathers, brothers and husbands who deprive women of pursuing education should be punished. New regulations and laws requiring divorced husbands to pay alimony to divorced wives should be passed. Ex-husbands should be forced to pay a monthly stipend to their divorced wives who are unemployed or do not have income of their own. We have to mitigate the effects of poverty on women in order to maximize the efficient role they can play in the advancement and development of society.
