Women’s employment needs new impetus

It is an accepted fact that the Kingdom Bahrain has, time and again, signalled its commitment to women’s progress but chosen to support women in ways that will not blur their role in the family unit and in the Bahraini community.

Equal access to education? Check

Equal access to all jobs? Check

Equal pay for the same work content? Check

Access to start-up loans and entrepreneurial support for women? Check

Over and above this, women in Bahrain are allowed generous maternity leave benefits and even special time off for breastfeeding. Women’s role in the centre of the family unit is celebrated not just with speeches but with a clear legal framework on implementing their rights.

Which is why, it comes as a shock to find out that the nationals most hardhit by unemployment are women. Three out of four Bahraini jobseekers at entry-level in the jobs arena, are women. The time has come for us to introspect and see where we are lagging in transforming the modern ambitions of Bahraini women into reality.

Often the gap between qualifications and finding a suitable role to contribute to nation-building, is the imagination of the job-seeker and the capacity of the employer to participate in this process. I think Bahraini women, even though they have access to equal education and jobs as men, are being held back by the pressure of traditional values that are not really relevant for our modern society.

It is time the role-models and our institutions emphasized new roles for women from the earliest stage. On the educational front we should push science and tech studies more for girls and give them the space to explore these knowledge-based fields. We must align our jobs market to encourage women to take up these new roles with incentives from bodies such as Tamkeen. And women re-entering the workspace after time off for family duties such as motherhood, must be given re-training and jobs access to tap into their experience and make them once again a valued part of our economy.

If our women are not represented properly in our economy, we will be wasting huge potential and investment in their studies and preparedness as participants in nation-building.

(Captain Mahmood Al Mahmood is the Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Tribune and the President of the Arab-African Unity Organisation for Relief, Human Rights and Counterterrorism)