Without power to decide
SAUDI Arabia’s guardianship system, which bars women from travelling abroad, obtaining a passport, marrying or exiting prison without the consent of a male relative, remains the most significant impediment to realising women’s rights in the kingdom, according to a report released recently by a leading human rights group.
The Human Rights Watch ( HRW) study takes on increasing significance as the kingdom works to implement its “Vision 2030” and “National Transformation Plan” to wean the country off its dependence on oil, including government targets to boost women’s participation in the workforce.
The report also comes just seven months after Saudi women were allowed the right to run and vote for the first time in the country’s only local elections, for municipal council seats.
The report finds that even with these greater opportunities, a woman’s life in Saudi Arabia rests largely on “the good will” of her male guardian – often a father, husband, brother, or in some cases her son.
A 25- year- old referred to as Zahra in the report says her father used to beat her so severely that at one point she temporarily lost her vision and had to be taken to a hospital. Though her parents divorced and she lived with her mother, her father remains her legal guardian. He refused to allow her to study abroad on scholarship and she cannot travel abroad for work without his permission.
HRW, which interviewed 61 A Human Rights Watch study finds that Saudi Arabia’s male guardianship system is the most significant impediment to realising its women’s rights. Saudis inside and outside the kingfor themselves “because they need dom over the past nine months, says to worry if their dad or father is it used pseudonyms for its intergoing to agree.” This could include viewees for security reasons. signing a lease, getting a job, travel
“Guardianship really creates a ling, studying or getting married, system that is ripe for abuse,” said Beckerle said. the report’s author Kristine Beckerle, Some guardianship restrictions a fellow in HRW’s Mideast division. have been loosened over the past
The underpinning of Saudi decade, with women granted the Arabia’s legal system and social right to work without male permisnorms is an ultraconservative sion. Islamic ideology widely known as Under the kingdom’s ambitious Wahhabism. economic reform plans, women are
Powerful Wahhabi clerics in the encouraged to enter the workforce kingdom support the imposition of and companies are given incentives male guardianship based on a verse to boost female employment. in the Quran that states men are the However, penalties are not protectors and maintainers of imposed on employers who refuse women. to hire women without the permis
Other Islamic scholars argue this sion of male relatives. Some univermisinterprets fundamental Quranic sities also require guardianship perconcepts like equality and respect mission to enroll. between the sexes. Other MuslimOther reforms have included majority countries, even those with granting Saudi women the right to Shariah courts, do not have similarly obtain national identity cards withrestrictive male guardianship laws. out male permission. But in order to
HRW says the Saudi system effecbe granted an ID card, women must tively renders adult women as legal present a family card, which is minors. The report also cites the issued to men. Recently, the governkingdom’s ban on women driving ment issued a directive allowing and an almost complete segregation divorced and widowed women to of the sexes as further impediments. obtain family cards, which grants
Because of a variety of rules and them the ability to enroll their chilinformal restrictions, women in dren in school, for example. Saudi Arabia cannot make decisions A law was passed in 2013 that criminalises domestic abuse, and women can seek protection in shelters without the approval of a male guardian.
But women still cannot travel abroad with their children without the permission of the father, who remains the children’s legal guardian, and women cannot provide consent for their daughters to marry, or pass their nationality to their children, the report said.
Informally, both public and private hospitals sometimes require a male guardian to agree before per- forming procedures, such as a C- section. Though not strictly enforced, women who are granted scholarships to study abroad must be accompanied by a male guardian. Female inmates must be released to a male guardian, leaving many either lingering in jail or shelters.
“There have been reforms on the margins that have no doubt had an impact on women’s lives... but by and large they can’t really get around without a male helping them,” said Beckerle. – AP