First two maternity insurance beneficiaries honoured

The Social Security Corporation (SSC) on Wednesday honoured the first two women to benefit from its maternity insurance programme, launched nine months ago. A delegation from the corporation’s media department visited Abeer Nassar from Mafraq and Aseel Abu Mohsen from Zarqa to congratulate them on their new babies and to present them with symbolic gifts, according to an SSC statement. The number of women subscribed to the maternity insurance service since it was launched on September 1, 2011, is currently 70, the statement said. The service, which gives working mothers around 70 days paid leave when they give birth, is paid for by employers, who contribute 0.075 per cent of the salary of each employee — both male and female — to the insurance fund. Women must be subscribed to the insurance policy for at least nine months before they can benefit from it, and must present a formal letter from the Civil Status and Passports Department, the Foreign Ministry, or any Jordanian embassy if they give birth outside Jordan, said the statement. The SSC established maternity insurance to encourage business owners to hire more women, who currently make up over 14 per cent of the workforce. As the programme is intended to allow mothers to look after their newborn children, mothers must not work during their maternity leave in order to collect payments. Under the service regulations, each woman is eligible for up to four maternity leaves, according to the SSC.