Mustafa Abdel Azim (Dubai)
The United Arab Emirates has led the Middle East countries in terms of women’s economic inclusion, according to the World Bank report, “Women, Business and Law 2021”, which praised the continuous improvements made by the country in the field of women’s empowerment.
In its report, which measures the extent of women’s empowerment in the labor market through laws and legislations, and through eight axes that collect legal materials and regulations regarding economic opportunities for women, the World Bank said in its report that the UAE has taken 5 reforms, during the period from September 2019 to October 2020, that covered 5 main axes, including freedom of movement, workplace, wages, marriage and parenthood, which placed it among the list of countries that took additional measures to empower women.
The eight main axes on which the report is based cover the areas of mobility, workplace, wage, marriage, parenthood, entrepreneurship, property, and pension. According to the index results, the UAE obtained a total of 82.5 points out of 100 points awarded to the countries most empowering women in the economic field. Which is the percentage that only 10 countries got, and it came to the top of Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France and Iceland.
Women in the UAE enjoy the same rights as men by 100% in 5 of the 8 main axes on which the report is based, which are the axes of mobility, work, wages, entrepreneurship and pension, praising the UAE’s decision to grant the employee / employee paternity leave / Paid maternity at birth, making it the first and only country in the Middle East and North Africa region to grant this paid leave.
The report concluded that governments have taken measures to address some of the effects of the epidemic on working women, noting that while less than a quarter of the economies surveyed legally had working parents any leave to care for children prior to the spread of the epidemic, the crisis contributed to the emergence of nearly 40 economies. Additionally, around the world they are introducing vacation or benefit policies to help parents care for children.
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