Saudi women finally get bra sellers of choice

JEDDAH: From today, only female staff will be able to sell women’s lingerie in Saudi Arabia, ending decades of awkwardness in the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom where women don black cloaks at all times out of the home.

“I and many other women like me were always embarrassed to walk into lingerie shops because men were selling the goods,” said shopper Samar Mohammed. She said she had often bought the wrong underwear “because I was sensitive about explaining what I wanted to a man”.

A royal decree, issued by King Abdullah last June over the objections of top clerics, gave lingerie shop owners six months to get rid of their male employees and to staff their stores with women only.

The ban on male staff is to be extended to cosmetics shops from July.

More than 7 300 retail outlets would be affected, creating job opportunities for more than 40 000 Saudi women, said Labour Minister Adel Faqih.

The Labour Ministry’s original proposal to allow women to work in lingerie stores sparked a storm of protest from the kingdom’s top clerics three years ago. They issued a fatwa,