Melania hails ‘empowerment of women’ at Saudi company visit
Ivanka: Saudi progress on women ‘encouraging’
US First Lady Melania Trump praised the “empowerment of women” at a General Electric allfemale service center in the Saudi capital yesterday, saying the women should work together and educate their children well. She is accompanying US President Donald Trump on his first international visit since taking office in January, and told 200 female employees she tried to find balance between her role of First Lady and mother.
“It is about finding the balance,” she told the women, who took pictures of her with their smartphones. Later on Twitter, she wrote “Enjoyed talking to the incredible women working hard @GE_Saudi service center. Great strides being made towards the empowerment of women.” Dressed in a tan kneelength dress, Melania shared a photo of herself with seven women dressed in abayas, the loose-fitting, full-length robes local women are required to wear in public in Saudi Arabia. She earlier visited the American International School of Riyadh and gave out books. The school, unlike most others in the conservative kingdom, has both male and female students of different nationalities.
Meanwhile, Trump’s daughter Ivanka said yesterday that ultraconservative Saudi Arabia has made “encouraging” progress in empowering women but more freedom is needed.
“Saudi Arabia’s progress, especially in recent years, is very encouraging,” Trump’s eldest daughter told a group of Saudi women she met in Riyadh while accompanying her father on a visit to the Muslim kingdom. “But there’s still a lot of work to be done and freedoms and opportunities to continue to fight for,” added Ivanka, who serves as an advisor to her father.
“Around the world women continue to achieve unprecedented levels of rights and freedoms. Today you all stand on the frontlines of the fight for gender equality,” she told a roundtable of women led by Princess Reema bint Bandar, deputy president of the Women’s Sports Authority. “The stories of Saudi women, such as yourselves, catalyzing change, inspire me to believe in the possibility of global women’s empowerment,” said Ivanka.
Saudi Arabia is well known as the world’s most gendersegregated nation, where women live under the supervision of a male guardian and need his permission to travel, study and get some health treatments. Since the late King Abdullah declared in 2011 that women could join the government advisory Shura Council, the situation for women has gradually started to change in line with moves to diversify the economy, employ more women and cut reliance on oil. —Agencies