Al Arabiya: Dozens of Bedouin women from southern Israel join the work force after an Israeli phone company opens a service center inside a local mosque, where women feel they can work without any inhibition.
The country’s largest telecom group, Bezeq Israel Telecom, in a joint venture with the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor, launched the center inside the mosque in an attempt to combat unemployment among Arab Bedouin women.
“Bedouin women would like to work, most of them, and they want to be a part of the work market and to contribute to the economy of the house alongside their husbands. But because there are no work places in the villages and they are not able to work outside the villages, this is preventing many of them from being a part of the work force,” Mahmoud Alamour, director of Rayan Center, said.
Because of their traditional, patriarchal lifestyle, persuading husbands and fathers to allow wives and daughters to go to work was not easy and the best way to allay fears was overcome by housing the call center at the mosque.
”The girls felt safe when we told them that they will work under a mosque. They were so happy because a girl feels she is in a safe place, like in her house and her village. Now we have two shifts, morning and evening and the girls work until 23:00, and we could only get this because we operate from the mosque,” said Naifa al-Nabari, vocational coordinator for Rayan Center.
Categories: Asia, Israel, Middle East, Society, Socioeconomics, Women