Equality or Justice? The Position of Labour Laws in Jordan, the UAE and England of Discrimination against Women in the Light of the Requirements of CEDAW

Authors : Firas Y. Kassasbeh

Pages : 54-78

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Publication Date : 2016-08-01

Article Type : Other

Abstract :This article addresses the position of labour laws in Jordan, the United Arab Emirates (hereafter UAE) and England towards the issue of equality between woman and man in the workplace in light of the requirements of CEDAW to which the three mentioned countries are parties. Generally speaking, CEDAW tends to be a convention aiming at achieving equality between man and woman in all aspects, inter alia, equality in work opportunities and rights. This vision is more suitable to English law, where it is argued that CEDAW and English law stemmed from the same environment, i.e. the Western environment. On the contrary, in many aspects, CEDAW contradicts the Eastern (Islamic) approach, respected by the laws of Jordan and the UAE, basing the relationship between man and woman on justice and integration rather than equality and competition. Therefore, the article examines to which extent labour laws in Jordan and the UAE have applied the requirements of CEDAW, and what are obstacles in front of applying the requirements not applied yet.
Keywords : labour law, woman, discrimination, Islamic law, CEDAW, Jordanian law, UAE law, English law