Saudi Arabia’s rigid sex segregation, compulsory male guardianship of women and other “grossly discriminatory” policies are a denial of fundamental rights, a leading human rights watchdog said yesterday.
Women are treated like legal minors who have no authority over their lives or their children, finds a new report by Human Rights Watch.
The depth and detail of discrimination was laid bare in more than 100 interviews conducted during the group’s first fact-finding visit to the oil-rich, conservative kingdom, where King Abdullah is often described as a cautious reformist.
“The Saudi government sacrifices basic human rights to maintain male control over women,” said Farida Deif, a researcher for the Middle East at the rights group.
“Saudi women won’t make any progress until the government ends the abuses that stem from these misguided policies,” she said.
Every Saudi woman must have a male guardian, normally a father or a husband, who is tasked with making a range of critical decisions. And even when permission from a guardian is not mandatory, some officials still ask for it “because current practice assumes women have no power to make their own decisions” over medical procedures or discharge from hospital.
Women are “marginalized almost to the point of total exclusion” from the country’s workforce, the report says. And since Saudi women are banned from driving, a large proportion of their salaries goes on paying for transportation.
Saudi women are denied the right to make even trivial decisions for their children and are not permitted to travel with them without permission from the child’s father, it says.
Reforms are often not implemented in practice: despite a recent decision allowing women over 45 to travel without permission, most airport officials still ask all women for written proof that their guardian has allowed them to travel.
The kingdom applies Shariah as the law of the land and the religious establishment largely controls education, the all-male judiciary and the policing of “public morality” through the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. Segregation causes discrimination against Saudi women in voting, employment and education, the group said.
Segregation can also endanger lives: In 2002 a fire at an elementary school in Mecca resulted in the deaths of 15 girls because religious police would not allow them to leave without their headscarves.
While Saudi Arabia has seen progress in female literacy in the past 50 years, with 83 percent of females over 15 literate in 2005, the general framework of education continues to reinforce discriminatory gender roles.
‘EYE FOR AN EYE’: Two of the men were shot by a male relative of the victims, whose families turned down the opportunity to offer them amnesty, the Supreme Court said Four men were yesterday publicly executed in Afghanistan, the Supreme Court said, the highest number of executions to be carried out in one day since the Taliban’s return to power. The executions in three separate provinces brought to 10 the number of men publicly put to death since 2021, according to an Agence France-Presse tally. Public executions were common during the Taliban’s first rule from 1996 to 2001, with most of them carried out publicly in sports stadiums. Two men were shot around six or seven times by a male relative of the victims in front of spectators in Qala-i-Naw, the center
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
The US will help bolster the Philippines’ arsenal and step up joint military exercises, Manila’s defense chief said, as tensions between Washington and China escalate. The longtime US ally is expecting a sustained US$500 million in annual defense funding from Washington through 2029 to boost its military capabilities and deter China’s “aggression” in the region, Philippine Secretary of Defense Gilberto Teodoro said in an interview in Manila on Thursday. “It is a no-brainer for anybody, because of the aggressive behavior of China,” Teodoro said on close military ties with the US under President Donald Trump. “The efforts for deterrence, for joint resilience
RSS