Jordan’s women plumbers fix pipes as men leave puddles

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Trainee plumbers fix a sink in a program run by German Development Agency GIZ. (GIZ photo)
Updated 14 September 2017
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Jordan’s women plumbers fix pipes as men leave puddles

LONDON: Israa Ababneh was skeptical when her uncle signed her up for a plumbing course at a vocational center in North Jordan.
“At first I thought what am I doing here? It’s just for men and it’s hard.”
But she stuck it out for three days and mastered the basics before moving onto practical skills.
“That’s when we started to have fun, learning how to cut iron pipes, connect them and fix leakages behind a wall.”
The 27-year-old is one of a growing number of women taking up plumbing in Jordan, raising eyebrows in local communities where social norms prevent many women from working, particularly in roles traditionally occupied by men.
Some 81 percent of women in Jordan are unemployed, according to a report by UNHCR.
The country ranks 134th out of 142 in terms of women’s economic contribution, according to a 2016 study by the Jordan Strategy Forum.
At first, Ababneh and the other female plumbers she works with found these patriarchal attitudes prohibitive — particularly when people refused them work because they were women.
“They used to laugh and say we couldn’t do it. It was like a challenge.”
Now, she said, clients call specifically seeking female plumbers.
“A man just mends the faucet and leaves a mess but when a woman does it she fixes the problem and leaves it clean.”
Women plumbers can also gain access that is off limits to men, carrying out work in households where male family members are not present.
This means leaks can be fixed faster with less water lost – a big benefit for a country where water availability is among the lowest in the world.
Jordan has an annual water supply of just 150 cubic meters per person, well below the official UN threshold for “absolute scarcity” set at 500 cubic meters.
“Water is a highly sensitive issue in Jordan,” said Bjorn Zimprich, project manager at German Development Agency GIZ, which initiated the Water Wise Women’s Initiative to train female plumbers in the country.
“There have been a lot of awareness campaigns and people know that water is scarce but with regards to behavioral impact there is limited impact.”
Most Jordanian households subsist on just one water tank a week so fixing a burst pipe quickly can make all the difference for families dependent on limited supplies.
With between 40 and 50 percent of Jordan’s water lost through its aging distribution network, due in large part to leakages and theft, there is an urgent need for more efficient maintenance.
Conservation is a key concern on the training program, which aims to raise awareness surrounding water scarcity among local and refugee communities across Jordan.
“People from Syria, Iraq and Palestine are all living in this country and sharing the water,” said Ababneh, pointing to the additional pressure on Jordan’s limited resources created by a refugee crisis.
“We go into schools and tell them how to stop leakages and advise households on using water-saving devices,” says Ababneh, who is now part of a professional female plumbing cooperative.
The women work in pairs, with different teams responding to calls around the country.
Plumber Ala Abu Heja, 32, hopes that this could help pave the way for more diversity in Jordan’s labor force.
“Before, a female plumber is not something people here would accept.
Now we’re seeing some females working in electricity, plumbing and mechanics so these initiatives will influence the entrance of women into other occupations traditionally dominated by men.”
More than 160 women have now graduated from the program, which runs separate sessions for male trainees.
Nargis Al-Mahmoud, 23, arrived in Jordan in 2013 after bombs destroyed her home in Dar’aa, Syria. With little means of generating an income in Jordan, her husband signed up for the course.
“He was really struggling to understand the theoretical part but reading his notebook one time I said, are you kidding? This is something I can do.”
The daughter of a handyman, Al-Mahmoud already knew her way around a toolbox and she enrolled in the program, eager to pursue a career in plumbing. “The first time I went to a house they started to make fun of me and I ran out crying. It was really bad. I told my husband and he said just stay at home, we don’t need this.
But Al-Mahmoud was determined to put her new skills to use. “I didn’t do all this training just to sit at home,” she said. After fixing a few things for free to showcase her skills, Al-Mahmoud’s client base began to grow and she is now working alongside her husband to expand their budding family business.
For Abu Heja, the opportunity to earn and contribute to the household budget has had a personal as well as a financial impact. “I now have a source of income and a greater sense of self-respect,” she said, a feeling shared by many graduates of the program. “In the past, we felt shy and restricted, but now we’re working, we feel we can go wherever we like and do what we want. It’s really built our confidence in a way that we never thought it would.”


At least 60 people feared missing in two deadly shipwrecks off Libya, IOM says

Updated 5 sec ago
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At least 60 people feared missing in two deadly shipwrecks off Libya, IOM says

REUTERS


CAIRO: At least 60 people were feared missing at sea after two deadly shipwrecks off the coast of Libya in recent days, the International Organization for Migration said on Tuesday.

Russia says Israel attacks on Iran are illegal, notes Iran’s commitement to NPT

Updated 17 sec ago
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Russia says Israel attacks on Iran are illegal, notes Iran’s commitement to NPT

  • The statement said Moscow was waiting for the International Atomic Energy Agency to provide “unvarnished” assessments of the damage caused to Iranian nuclear facilities by Israeli attacks

MOSCOW: Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday denounced continued Israeli attacks on Iran as illegal and said a solution to the conflict over Tehran’s nuclear program could only be found through diplomacy.
A ministry statement posted on Telegram noted Iran’s “clear statements” on its commitment to adhere to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and its willingness to meet with US representatives.
The statement also said Moscow was waiting for the International Atomic Energy Agency to provide “unvarnished” assessments of the damage caused to Iranian nuclear facilities by Israeli attacks.

 


Qatari emir and Turkish president discuss Israeli attacks on Iran

Updated 17 min 39 sec ago
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Qatari emir and Turkish president discuss Israeli attacks on Iran

  • Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani and Recep Tayyip Erdogan emphasize important need to deescalate conflict and find diplomatic solutions

LONDON: Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday discussed Israel’s ongoing attacks on Iran, which began on Friday and have targeted nuclear sites, military leaders, intelligence chiefs and atomic scientists.

During their call, the leaders emphasized the important need to deescalate the conflict and find diplomatic solutions, the Qatar News Agency reported.

Earlier in the day, the Qatari minister of state for foreign affairs, Mohammed Al-Khulaifi, warned during a call with Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, that the targeting of Iranian nuclear facilities by Israel represented a serious threat to regional and international security.

The IAEA reported on Monday that an Israeli airstrike on Iran’s Natanz Nuclear Facility on Friday had damaged centrifuges at the underground uranium-enrichment plant, raising concerns about possible radiological and chemical contamination in the area.


Qatari minister of state, IAEA chief discuss ‘serious threat’ of Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites

Updated 17 June 2025
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Qatari minister of state, IAEA chief discuss ‘serious threat’ of Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites

  • Mohammed bin Abdulaziz Al-Khulaifi reiterates Qatar’s condemnation of attacks on Iranian territory
  • He said targeting nuclear facilities threatens regional, international security

LONDON: The Qatari Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Mohammed bin Abdulaziz Al-Khulaifi on Tuesday discussed the conflict between Israel and Iran with Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Al-Khulaifi discussed in a call the Israeli attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities that began on Friday, targeting the Natanz, Fordo, and Isfahan nuclear sites.

Al-Khulaifi stressed that targeting nuclear facilities was a serious threat to regional and international security. He reaffirmed Qatar’s commitment to dialogue to resolve conflicts and achieve peace in the region.

The officials discussed ways to improve the security of nuclear facilities and ensure they are safeguarded against threats, the Qatar News Agency reported.

Al-Khulaifi reiterated Qatar’s strong condemnation of the Israeli attacks on Iranian territory, deeming them blatant violations of Iran’s sovereignty and security, the QNA added.

The IAEA reported on Monday that the Israeli airstrike on Iran’s Natanz facility on Friday damaged the centrifuges of the underground uranium enrichment plant, raising concerns about potential radiological and chemical contamination in the area.


US pulls out of two more bases in Syria, worrying Kurdish forces

Updated 17 June 2025
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US pulls out of two more bases in Syria, worrying Kurdish forces

  • The SDF did not respond to questions about the current number of troops and open US bases in northeastern Syria

AL-SHADADI BASE: US forces have pulled out of two more bases in northeastern Syria, visiting reporters found, accelerating a troop drawdown that the commander of US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces said was allowing a resurgence of Daesh.
The reporters who visited the two bases in the past week found them mostly deserted, both guarded by small contingents of the Syrian Democratic Forces — the Kurdish-led military group that Washington has backed in the fight against Daesh for a decade.
Cameras used on bases occupied by the US-led military coalition had been taken down, and razor wire on the outer perimeters had begun to sag.
A Kurdish politician who lives on one base said there were no longer US troops there. SDF guards at the second base said troops had left recently but refused to say when.

HIGHLIGHTS

• No US troops present at Al-Wazir and Tel Baydar bases.

• Daesh threat ‘has significantly increased’, SDF commander says.

The Pentagon refused to comment.
It is the first confirmation on the ground by reporters that the US has withdrawn from Al-Wazir and Tel Baydar bases in Hasaka province.
It brings to at least four the number of bases in Syria US troops have left since President Donald Trump took office.
Trump’s administration said this month it will scale down its military presence in Syria to one base from eight in parts of northeastern Syria that the SDF controls.
The New York Times reported in April that troops might be reduced from 2,000 to 500 in the drawdown.
The SDF did not respond to questions about the current number of troops and open US bases in northeastern Syria.
But SDF commander Mazloum Abdi, who spoke at another US base, Al-Shadadi, said the presence of a few hundred troops on one base would be “not enough” to contain the threat of Daesh.
“The threat of Daesh has significantly increased recently. But this is the US military’s plan. We’ve known about it for a long time ... and we’re working with them to make sure there are no gaps and we can maintain pressure on Daesh State,” he said.
Abdi spoke on Friday, hours after Israel launched its air war on Iran. He refused to comment on how the new Israel-Iran war would affect Syria, saying simply that he hoped it would not spill over there and that he felt safe on a US base.
Hours after the interview, three Iranian-made missiles targeted the Al-Shadadi base and were shot down by US defense systems, two SDF security sources said.
Daesh ruled vast swathes of Iraq and Syria from 2014 to 2017 during Syria’s civil war.