Following her marriage, Wafa Bwirat, 34, from the village Fureidis moved to the small village of Bwirat, nearby. She graduated high school with honors, and wanted to continue studying but had to contribute to the family’s household. In 2008 she worked at a large packing house through a subcontractor, who would skim off a substantial percent of her salary.
Published on CAFOD’s website in April 8′ 2015 – Wafa was honoured by the council, for “her extraordinary effort and her difficult and insistent work for opening work places for women. For safeguarding their rights in the labour market and for strengthening their social status in the family and in society.”
What prevents an Arab woman living in Israel from working? It turns out that beyond barriers related to education, public transport and infrastructure, government policy is a significant part of the problem. Arab women are interested to work in agriculture, but employers prefer to import workers and employ them illegally. A meeting of Israeli Arab women with government representatives took place on Monday (12/15/2014) in Kara, to discuss the issue and ask the government to work diligently to increase the rate of employment of Arab women
Wafa Tiara works for CAFOD partner in Tel Aviv, Workers Advice Centre Ma’an, which supports unorganised workers regardless of ethnicity or religion.
On Sunday, December 22, 2013, the conference for the integration of Arab women in the workforce was held at the Tel-Aviv University under the title “Fair Trade, Fair Employment”. The conference was an initiative of the Sindyanna of Galilee Fair Trade Association, Independent Union Center Ma’an, the Bread and Roses art exhibition, and Italian NGO Cospe, within the EU-funded “Fair Trade Fair Peace” project. Tens of agricultural workers from the Arab Triangle region, women active at the Sindyanna of Galilee visitors’ center in Kufr Manda, Tel-Avivis, and Jaffans attended.
Much Ado about Nothing. While the OECD delegation was visiting Israel in September 2012, I was asked to present my view as a representative of WAC regarding the progress made in the labor market. The following remarks were made on the booklet which was prepared by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Employment, under the title “Progress Report in applying the OECD Recommendations on the labor market and social policy”(June 2012, page 175).
WAC-MAAN challenges the assertion, made by agriculture sector leaders, that taxing farmers for hiring foreign workers would not persuade them to give jobs to Israelis instead. The union claims that farmers prefer Thai workers, who are cheaper.
The Nov. 28 session of the Knesset Committee on Foreign Workers was intended to debate putting an end to the import of migrant labor for construction and agriculture, and encouraging Israeli workers in these sectors. But instead, we were witness once again to a display of impotency in the face of the powerful farmers’ lobby. The debate exposed the well-known fact that there is nobody in the political establishment who is able or willing to do what must clearly be done: stopping the import of migrant laborers and opening up jobs to local workers especially Arab women.
At first they marched hesitantly, astonished, perhaps even with envy, as they beheld the typical Tel Aviv scene of wide green boulevards, bustling cafes, children in playgrounds, mothers with strollers, young women riding around on bicycles, and the press. It was Friday, October 28, 2011. Over 70 women agricultural workers in long dresses and headscarves marched along Rothschild Boulevard together with the same number of activists from the protest movement in Tel Aviv and the Workers Advice Center (WAC-Maan, hereinafter WAC). They didn’t know what kind of welcome to expect from Tel Aviv. But step by step, their self-confidence grew, and they began responding to the slogans Asma Agbarieh-Zahalka bellowed into the megaphone, at first shyly but later with all their strength: “Work, yes! Unemployment, no!”, “Bibi, resign, you’re not wanted anymore!”, and in Arabic, “Freedom, democracy, social justice!”
In these very days, marking 100 years of Women’s International Day, a new chapter is being written in history by millions of women and men in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain and elsewhere. We salute the workers who first raised the banner of revolt in Egypt in 2008, who persisted and who now see the fruit of their sacrifices. This is the springtime of the peoples in the Arab world, opening a gateway of hope for all. At last we may dare to believe that we can determine our destinies, securing the right to live and work in dignity.
