Qaisar Hamid Mutawie Al-Madinah The Saudi labor system, issued on Sept. 27, 2005, has given many rights to the working women. It contains a special chapter titled: “Employment of women”. Regardless, a number of women working in the private sector are completely ignorant of this system. As a result, they are likely to lose many of their rights guaranteed by the system. The employer will not bother to inform the women working for him about their rights. He himself may have no knowledge of these rights or is benefiting from the women's ignorance of their rights. Therefore, it is important that all working women should be completely aware of their rights specified by the labor system so that they can claim them if the employer does not guarantee them by himself. The rights stipulated in the system prevent the employer from asking his women workers to do dangerous jobs or work in harmful industries. Under these rights, a pregnant woman is entitled to maternity leave of four weeks before giving birth and six weeks after that. She should not be asked to do difficult jobs for six weeks after she comes back to work from her maternity leave. The employer is asked to pay the working woman who is on maternity leave half of her salary if she has worked for him for a year and her full salary if she has worked for three years. When she comes back to work after her maternity leave, the woman should be given an extra break of at least one hour to breastfeed her child. This is, of course, in addition to her normal day breaks with all other employees. All these rights have been guaranteed for working women by the labor system. They should be aware of them and demand them from their employer if he turns a deaf ear.
