It’s not women who are gaming the Hafiz program

Whenever I read about some Saudi woman making great strides in the world like inventing a thing-a-ma-bob to save the world or discovering a gene that will unlock the mysteries of the human body, I am quickly brought back to earth by studies that show that women are actually a burden on society or maybe criminals preying on the government.
The latest study to shed light on the evil ways of women was disclosed recently at the Riyadh Economic Forum. The study asserted that 1.2 million of the 1.6 million Saudis collecting unemployment funds from the Hafiz program are women. That’s 78 percent of all recipients. And a little less of one-third of those 1.2 million Saudi women hold bachelor’s degrees.
The implication is that these women are sitting at home collecting SR 2,000 a month just to help out their husbands or get that new Michael Kors handbag they spotted at the Red Sea Mall. They are breaking the law by collecting money while not looking for a job.
If it comes as a shocker to the delegates at the Riyadh Economic Forum that Saudis are collecting unemployment funds and not actively seeking a job, then they don’t get out much. One needs to look no further than the unemployment benefit programs in the United States, the United Kingdom and that hotbed of socialism, Europe, to see that some people do indeed collect money while doing nothing. Saudi Arabia presumably would be no different.
But that is not the real issue. There seems to be a prevailing sense that educated Saudi women are somehow not entitled to Hafiz benefits because she wants to contribute it to the rent, groceries or getting the kids new school clothes.
The concept of Hafiz is to provide funds to the unemployed until they find jobs. It’s not charity. Of course, this is true. However, critics fail to recognize that the deck is stacked against women looking for work.
The road to employment is paved with obstacles designed to keep women at home. No public transportation, predatory taxi and private limousine drivers, private companies reluctant to hire women or insist they have a mahram’s permission, and a limited job market for female university degree holders conspire to keep women from working.
These obstacles are so daunting that it takes a woman with the will of a superhero and ironclad armor to protect her emotions from a society that condemns her for daring to seek work. If the pressure is so immense to remain at home while your brain slowly softens like soggy cereal from the lack of intellectual stimulation, who is to say that collecting public money is wrong.
To establish policies designed to prevent women from working, and then deny these women the right to collect unemployment simply adds further insult to those who want to make meaningful contributions to society.
To solve this problem, the private sector must create an environment that encourages women to apply for jobs. That means spending the money to create proper facilities, including onsite childcare, to accommodate them during the workday. It also means actively recruiting women from the Hafiz program and on university campuses. Further, the public sector must open its job vacancies to women, who have proven time after time that they are more productive workers than their male counterparts.
There also has been discussion of establishing a Women’s Affairs Ministry to supervise the suitability of the work environment for women. This would allow the Women’s Affairs Ministry to work with the Labor Ministry and stop religious authorities from interfering in workplace policies.
More emphasis should be placed on job recruitment and less on whether women are gaming the system to get an extra SR 2,000 a month. The only people gaming the system are the decision-makers who find inventive ways to keep women from working.

Email: [email protected]