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.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including