Policy Brief on Child Marriage in Jordan: Overview

The Higher Population Council regards the marriage of underage girls as a violation of the legitimate human rights to education, personal development, free and informed choice of a marriage partner, marriage compatibility and the right to establish proper family relationships. This violation negatively affects the quality of life and reproductive health of girls. It also has negative economic consequences, hinders the ability of families to properly raise their children and build future generations, and poses a threat to the demographics of society and the efforts to benefit from the demographic transition that Jordan is experiencing.

HPC carried out a study on child marriage in Jordan to serve as the basis for developing this policy brief. The policy brief consists of several parts; the first part identifies the problem on various levels and shows that in 2015 out of every 10 married women in Jordan two were married as minors, 1 out of every 10 married Jordanian women was married as a minor, and 4 out of every 10 married Syrian women in Jordan were married as minors. The policy brief also reveals that there is an upward trend nationally in the number of child marriages, mainly driven by the number of marriages involving Syrians, and that there has been a recent upward trend in the numbers of marriages involving underage Jordanian females since 2013.

The second part of the policy brief overviews the current situation of married underage girls and reveals that these girls are less educated, have the lowest participation in the economy, have limited health coverage and their husbands often lack stable jobs. The third part focuses on the causes of child marriage in Jordan, including the desire to be relieved of the financial burden of providing for girls in the family, repeated failure in school, the desire to be rid of the responsibility of protecting the honor of girls, customs and traditions and social upbringing. Moreover, the Policy Brief highlights the main health, psychological and social implications of child marriage on girls.

This policy brief tested seven suggested policies to address this issue and listed them in order of priority as follows:

• Address the reasons that lead girls to drop out of school and make education compulsory up to the secondary level.
• Develop and implement a comprehensive awareness plan on child marriage and its negative side effects on individuals, families, children and the society as a whole.
• Provide financial support as well as family guidance and counselling to families that opt to marry off their daughters due to poverty and poor financial conditions.
• Abolish the exception in paragraph (b) of clause (10) of the Personal Status Law
• Enhance remedies and prevention programs and services related to child marriage
• Develop a national strategy on child marriage.
• Shift the focus of scientific research towards identifying gaps in interventions aimed at protecting girls, and treat child marriage as a serious matter.

Child Marriage in Jordan

The study and policy brief recommended a number of preventative measures and solutions for child marriage and its impact on the Jordanian society. The procedures taken by the Council to adopt and implement the recommendations of the study and the policy brief were:

1. HPC, through the minister of planning and international cooperation, presented the proposed policies and procedures to limit child marriage in Jordan.
2. The Secretary General of HPC discussed the recommendations of the study with the Services Committee at the Prime Ministry
3. The Government adopted the recommended policies and procedures and communicated them to all government institutions and departments for implementation. The communicated policies were:

First: Short-term recommendations

Second: Medium-term recommendations

Third: Long-term recommendations

Standing at 1.3 million, (13.6% of the total population of Jordan), the number of Syrians in Jordan is a key indicator that impacts the demographic and age structures in Jordan as it seeks to benefit from the demographic window of opportunity in 2030 and achieve a demographic transition whereby the dependency rate is the lowest and the portion of working age population is high and progress on national health indicators is maintained through a lowering the birth rate to 2.1 births per woman in 2030. However, as the Syrian crisis enters its fifth year and the flow of refugees, the majority of whom are women and children, continues to increase exponentially, Jordan is faced by a new challenge that will delay progress towards the demographic window of opportunity, especially that the Syrian refugee crisis is causing an increase in the percentage of women and children and will negatively impact the age structure of the population while birth rates in Jordan are witnessing a slight decrease, which will negatively impact population and development plans and policies in Jordan.

Numerous studies indicate that awareness of health issues in general and reproductive and family planning in particular among Syrians in Jordan is low, and that the use of family planning methods among married Syrian women aged (12-49) stands at (49.7%). Married Syrian women of childbearing age residing in Jordan are younger, poorer, less educated and unemployed compared to Jordanian women of childbearing age and, therefore, their knowledge of family planning trends and practices is comparable to that of Jordanian women in poor areas. Moreover, the average age of marriage for Syrian women in Jordan is (19.8) years compared to (21.2) for Jordanian women. This is expected to cause an increase in birth rates among Syrian women. According to Civil Status Department statistics, Syrian births increased by approximately 82.1% from 11623 in 2013 to 21167 in 2015.

With 91.5% of Syrians residing outside camps in Jordan, the provision of healthcare services is a significant challenge. Therefore, a number of policies were reviewed and assessed for enhancing reproductive healthcare services provided for Syrians outside camps, increasing the accessibility of these of health centers. These policies were:

• Develop a comprehensive work plan for enhancing Syrians’ awareness of reproductive health, family planning and the disadvantages of early marriage.
• Develop a national plan for providing sustainable reproductive health services for Syrians after the end of donor-funded projects.
• Upgrade reproductive health services offered to Syrians outside camps in Jordan
• Develop a coordination and networking plan for all providers of reproductive healthcare to Syrians outside camps in Jordan Led by HPC and MOH.

All the above policies are essential in order to provide more comprehensive and adequate reproductive health services to Syrians living outside camps, and should, therefore, be adopted. To that end, the following measures should be carried out:

1. Form a national committee headed jointly by the Higher Population Council and the Ministry of Health and consisting of all governmental and non-governmental local and international agencies that provide reproductive health services to Syrians outside camps in Jordan in addition to experts and specialists. The committee shall be responsible for developing the necessary national plans to raise the awareness the Syrians and ensure the financial sustainability of services.
2. Develop collective work mechanisms to ensure coordination, networking and teamwork among all providers of reproductive healthcare for Syrians and facilitate awareness-raising, education and counselling activities.
3. Assess the experience of government and non-government local and international agencies in providing reproductive health services to Syrians outside camps in recent years.
4. Develop a computerized documentation system for all providers of reproductive healthcare services to Syrians outside camps in Jordan to facilitate studies and ensure that services are continuous and comprehensive.
5. Adopt a participatory approach to improve the quality and integration of services offered by all governmental, and non-governmental local and international providers of reproductive healthcare services for Syrians outside camps in Jordan.
6. Incorporate the above measures into the national strategy for reproductive health as inputs into the strategy.

Progress to date:

HPC submitted the policy brief to the minister of planning and international cooperation / Chairman of HPC, and will be later submitted to the prime minister. 

Despite the substantial investments made by the government in health, education, legislation and policies to enable women’s participation in the economy (female labor force participation to female population aged 15 and up), participation rate remained low throughout the last decade and dropped even further in 2013. This rate is also considered low compared to other countries of the world, including Arab countries, as Jordan ranked 133 out of 136 countries in 2013, raising concerns from the Higher Population Council and the Jordanian National Commission for Women, taking into account that the number of women of working age is increasing and Jordan is at the threshold of a demographic window of opportunity.

The policy brief proposed three policy options for addressing the challenges faced by women in the workplace. These policy options are: promoting flexible work arrangements, promoting gender-friendly work environment, and strengthening the positive role of religious, education and media institutions in supporting women and gender equality. The first option, which calls for promoting flexible work arrangements (part-time work, work from home, flexible working hours), was considered a first priority as it addresses the majority of obstacles faced by women in the workplace. Adoption of this option is dependent on the implementation of option three, which focuses on raising awareness of women’s participation in the labour market and supports the National Strategy for Employment (2013-2017) and the National Strategy for Women (2013-2017). It should be noted that the majority of EU countries have adopted a similar policy to promote women’s participation in the labor market, and GCC countries have taken substantial steps in this regard as well.

Moreover, the effective implementation of this option requires forming a national committee by the Prime Minister comprising representatives of all concerned entities from the public and private sectors and CSOs to develop official flexible work arrangements for the Kingdom and a relevant strategic plan for implementation.

Progress to date:

• HPC presented the Policy Brief to the Minister of Planning and International Cooperation/ Chairman of the Higher Population Council.
• The Minister of Planning and International Cooperation submitted the Policy Brief to the Prime Minister.
• The Prime Minister formed a technical committee to consider the adoption of flexible work arrangements and develop relevant regulations.
• The government officially adopted the flexible work arrangements option by issuing the “Flexible Work By-Law” of 2017. The by-law was endorsed by His Majesty the King.

Jordan is experiencing a demographic transition towards a youthful age structure, and needs to increase the productivity and competitiveness of youth in domestic, regional and international markets through vocational and technical training and education (TVET) to supply the Jordanian labor market with a qualified and trained workforce.

The E-TVET sector is faced by many challenges. At the forefront of these challenges is the negative perception Jordanian society has towards vocational work, the limited financial gains graduates of these programs achieve, and weak private sector participation in supporting technical and vocational training and recruiting graduates.

Moreover, the sector is managed by multiple entities and lacks an umbrella that overlooks the Jordanian human resources, leading to weak coordination among the three concerned councils: (Education, Higher Education and E-TVET Councils). Securing employment opportunities for the large influx of human resources from the different national education and training programs is also a challenge especially that the cost of doing so is high and resources are limited.

Foreign labor poses another challenge to the sector, entering the Jordanian labor market in large numbers either as a result of a shortage of labor in certain fields or due to the political conditions in the region and, particularly, in the Middle East.

The policy brief proposes a number of policies, namely establishing a higher council for human resource development, improving career guidance and counselling, offering vocational and technical education specializations in higher education for graduates of vocational and technical education and enhancing training of trainers program to increase the efficiency of vocational and technical trainers.

While all the above policies are essential for enabling the employment, technical and vocational education and training sector, the policy brief concluded that establishing a higher council for human resources should be a first priority. The policy brief explains that the council would be an incubator for the three other policies, and that there is a need nationally for an independent high-level entity to be responsible for formulating HR policies to maintain the autonomy of training and education institutions while developing and implementing efficient accountability systems at the national level to eliminate fragmented policies in this sector, thereby improving coordination as well as quality control and management in educational and training institutions to upgrade the quality of the various levels and forms of education. This issue was tackled in the National Agenda, the National, the Employment, Technical and Vocational Education and Training Strategy for 2011-2013, and the second report on the State of Jordan Population of 2014: an overview of employment, technical and vocational education and training. As can be seen, this policy should be given priority as it addresses all the challenges in the E-TVET sector. The adoption of this policy requires the issuance of a legislation to establish a higher council for human resources chaired by the deputy prime minister and consisting of the following members:

• Minister of labor
• Minister of Education
• Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research
• Minister of Planning and International Development
• Ministry of Public Sector Development
• Higher Population Council
• President of Balqa Applied University
• National Center for Human Resource Development
• Representative of the Jordanian Armed Forces designated by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
• President of the Jordan Chamber of Industry or the Chamber of Commerce
• Two individuals who have the experience and interest appointed by the chairman to represent business associations.

Tasks of the Council

• Formulate and prioritize national HR and employment policies and approve, monitor and evaluate the implementation of the relevant action plans.
• Set the framework for a consolidated national policy for human resources and approve, monitor and review the relevant action plans.
• Set national standards for the HR program to ensure alignment with labor market needs and competitiveness
• Develop frameworks and mechanisms for coordination among various stakeholders.
• Develop and adopt HR indicators for Jordan on regular basis.
• Monitor, upgrade and follow up on the uses of the National Human Resources Information System
• Instruct assessments and other studies on HR and market needs policies and programs.
• Review legislation (laws, regulations and instructions) on human resources and submit recommendations, as deemed necessary, to the Cabinet.
• Enhance cooperation between local institutions concerned with human resources and their Arab, regional and international counterparts.

Progress to date:

• HPC submitted the Policy Brief to the Minister of Planning and International Cooperation / Chairman of the HPC to be later sent to the Prime Minister. 

Standing at 1.3 million, (13.6% of the total population of Jordan), the number of Syrians in Jordan is a key indicator that impacts the demographic and age structures in Jordan as it seeks to benefit from the demographic window of opportunity in 2030 and achieve a demographic transition whereby the dependency rate is the lowest and the portion of working age population is high and progress on national health indicators is maintained through a lowering the birth rate to 2.1 births per woman in 2030. However, as the Syrian crisis enters its fifth year and the flow of refugees, the majority of whom are women and children, continues to increase exponentially, Jordan is faced by a new challenge that will delay progress towards the demographic window of opportunity, especially that the Syrian refugee crisis is causing an increase in the percentage of women and children and will negatively impact the age structure of the population while birth rates in Jordan are witnessing a slight decrease, which will negatively impact population and development plans and policies in Jordan.

Numerous studies indicate that awareness of health issues in general and reproductive and family planning in particular among Syrians in Jordan is low, and that the use of family planning methods among married Syrian women aged (12-49) stands at (49.7%). Married Syrian women of childbearing age residing in Jordan are younger, poorer, less educated and unemployed compared to Jordanian women of childbearing age and, therefore, their knowledge of family planning trends and practices is comparable to that of Jordanian women in poor areas. Moreover, the average age of marriage for Syrian women in Jordan is (19.8) years compared to (21.2) for Jordanian women. This is expected to cause an increase in birth rates among Syrian women. According to Civil Status Department statistics, Syrian births increased by approximately 82.1% from 11623 in 2013 to 21167 in 2015.

With 91.5% of Syrians residing outside camps in Jordan, the provision of healthcare services is a significant challenge. Therefore, a number of policies were reviewed and assessed for enhancing reproductive healthcare services provided for Syrians outside camps, increasing the accessibility of these of health centers. These policies were:

• Develop a comprehensive work plan for enhancing Syrians’ awareness of reproductive health, family planning and the disadvantages of early marriage.
• Develop a national plan for providing sustainable reproductive health services for Syrians after the end of donor-funded projects.
• Upgrade reproductive health services offered to Syrians outside camps in Jordan
• Led by HPC and MOH, develop a coordination and networking plan for all providers of reproductive healthcare to Syrians outside camps in Jordan.

All the above policies are essential in order to provide more comprehensive and adequate reproductive health services to Syrians living outside camps, and should, therefore, be adopted. To that end, the following measures should be carried out:

1. Form a national committee headed jointly by the Higher Population Council and the Ministry of Health and consisting of all governmental and non-governmental local and international agencies that provide reproductive health services to Syrians outside camps in Jordan in addition to experts and specialists. The committee shall be responsible for developing the necessary national plans to raise the awareness the Syrians and ensure the financial sustainability of services.
2. Develop collective work mechanisms to ensure coordination, networking and teamwork among all providers of reproductive healthcare for Syrians and facilitate awareness-raising, education and counselling activities.
3. Assess the experience of government and non-government local and international agencies in providing reproductive health services to Syrians outside camps in recent years.
4. Develop a computerized documentation system for all providers of reproductive healthcare services to Syrians outside camps in Jordan to facilitate studies and ensure that services are continuous and comprehensive.
5. Adopt a participatory approach to improve the quality and integration of services offered by all governmental, and non-governmental local and international providers of reproductive healthcare services for Syrians outside camps in Jordan.
6. Incorporate the above measures into the national strategy for reproductive health as inputs into the strategy.

Progress to date:

• HPC submitted the policy brief to the minister of planning and international cooperation / Chairman of HPC, and will be later submitted to the prime minister.

Despite the substantial investments made by the government in health, education, legislation and policies to enable women’s participation in the economy (female labor force participation to female population aged 15 and up), participation rate remained low throughout the last decade and dropped even further in 2013. This rate is also considered low compared to other countries of the world, including Arab countries, as Jordan ranked 133 out of 136 countries in 2013, raising concerns from the Higher Population Council and the Jordanian National Commission for Women, taking into account that the number of women of working age is increasing and Jordan is at the threshold of a demographic window of opportunity.

The policy brief proposed three policy options for addressing the challenges faced by women in the workplace. These policy options are: promoting flexible work arrangements, promoting gender-friendly work environment, and strengthening the positive role of religious, education and media institutions in supporting women and gender equality. The first option, which calls for promoting flexible work arrangements (part-time work, work from home, flexible working hours), was considered a first priority as it addresses the majority of obstacles faced by women in the workplace. Adoption of this option is dependent on the implementation of option three, which focuses on raising awareness of women’s participation in the labour market and supports the National Strategy for Employment (2013-2017) and the National Strategy for Women (2013-2017). It should be noted that the majority of EU countries have adopted a similar policy to promote women’s participation in the labor market, and GCC countries have taken substantial steps in this regard as well.

Moreover, the effective implementation of this option requires forming a national committee by the Prime Minister comprising representatives of all concerned entities from the public and private sectors and CSOs to develop official flexible work arrangements for the Kingdom and a relevant strategic plan for implementation.

Progress to date:

• HPC presented the Policy Brief to the Minister of Planning and International Cooperation/ Chairman of the Higher Population Council.
• The Minister of Planning and International Cooperation submitted the Policy Brief to the Prime Minister.
• The Prime Minister formed a technical committee to consider the adoption of flexible work arrangements and develop relevant regulations.
• The government officially adopted the flexible work arrangements option by issuing the “Flexible Work By-Law” of 2017. The by-law was endorsed by His Majesty the King. 

Jordan is experiencing a demographic transition towards a youthful age structure, and needs to increase the productivity and competitiveness of youth in domestic, regional and international markets through vocational and technical training and education (TVET) to supply the Jordanian labor market with a qualified and trained workforce.

The E-TVET sector is faced by many challenges. At the forefront of these challenges is the negative perception Jordanian society has towards vocational work, the limited financial gains graduates of these programs achieve, and weak private sector participation in supporting technical and vocational training and recruiting graduates.

Moreover, the sector is managed by multiple entities and lacks an umbrella that overlooks the Jordanian human resources, leading to weak coordination among the three concerned councils: (Education, Higher Education and E-TVET Councils). Securing employment opportunities for the large influx of human resources from the different national education and training programs is also a challenge especially that the cost of doing so is high and resources are limited.

Foreign labor poses another challenge to the sector, entering the Jordanian labor market in large numbers either as a result of a shortage of labor in certain fields or due to the political conditions in the region and, particularly, in the Middle East.

The policy brief proposes a number of policies, namely establishing a higher council for human resource development, improving career guidance and counselling, offering vocational and technical education specializations in higher education for graduates of vocational and technical education and enhancing training of trainers program to increase the efficiency of vocational and technical trainers.

While all the above policies are essential for enabling the employment, technical and vocational education and training sector, the policy brief concluded that establishing a higher council for human resources should be a first priority. The policy brief explains that the council would be an incubator for the three other policies, and that there is a need nationally for an independent high-level entity to be responsible for formulating HR policies to maintain the autonomy of training and education institutions while developing and implementing efficient accountability systems at the national level to eliminate fragmented policies in this sector, thereby improving coordination as well as quality control and management in educational and training institutions to upgrade the quality of the various levels and forms of education. This issue was tackled in the National Agenda, the National, the Employment, Technical and Vocational Education and Training Strategy for 2011-2013, and the second report on the State of Jordan Population of 2014: an overview of employment, technical and vocational education and training. As can be seen, this policy should be given priority as it addresses all the challenges in the E-TVET sector. The adoption of this policy requires the issuance of a legislation to establish a higher council for human resources chaired by the deputy prime minister and consisting of the following members:

• Minister of labor
• Minister of Education
• Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research
• Minister of Planning and International Development
• Ministry of Public Sector Development
• Higher Population Council
• President of Balqa Applied University
• National Center for Human Resource Development
• Representative of the Jordanian Armed Forces designated by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
• President of the Jordan Chamber of Industry or the Chamber of Commerce
• Two individuals who have the experience and interest appointed by the chairman to represent business associations.

Tasks of the Council

• Formulate and prioritize national HR and employment policies and approve, monitor and evaluate the implementation of the relevant action plans.
• Set the framework for a consolidated national policy for human resources and approve, monitor and review the relevant action plans.
• Set national standards for the HR program to ensure alignment with labor market needs and competitiveness
• Develop frameworks and mechanisms for coordination among various stakeholders.
• Develop and adopt HR indicators for Jordan on regular basis.
• Monitor, upgrade and follow up on the uses of the National Human Resources Information System
• Instruct assessments and other studies on HR and market needs policies and programs.
• Review legislation (laws, regulations and instructions) on human resources and submit recommendations, as deemed necessary, to the Cabinet.
• Enhance cooperation between local institutions concerned with human resources and their Arab, regional and international counterparts.

Progress to date:

• HPC submitted the Policy Brief to the Minister of Planning and International Cooperation / Chairman of the HPC to be later sent to the Prime Minister.