Women’s Rights in Saudi Arabia

The Issue

Women in Saudi Arabia are less represented in political, social, economic and scientific fields than women in any other Arab or Muslim country. Women were barred from participating in the only municipal elections in the history of the Saudi state in 2005. They are prohibited from studying certain subjects in schools, such as chemistry and biology. They may not legally drive and must obtain “permission” from a male “guardian” to travel within or outside the country. Women must ride in the back of public buses, even when the buses are empty. Saudi girls are not allowed to play sports in schools, which, by Saudi health official admission, is causing health problems and staggering expenses. All marriages are arranged by male relatives. If a Saudi woman divorces her husband, she loses custody of her children over age six. Women have little or no freedom to effectively prosecute sexual abuse cases, being required to produce four witnesses. In court, a woman’s testimony is equivalent to half that of a man’s. These conditions violate women’s human rights and have devastating personal and social effects. Read More…

From CDHR

Divorced, Beaten, Sick, Abandoned and Nowhere to go
While Saudi Arabia is not the only country where cases of abuses of women occur, Saudi women have no legal or economic protection to defend themselves against abuses. They are not allowed to work, travel or even deliver babies without the approval of a male relative (guardian). The unnatural and counterproductive maltreatment of Saudi and expatriate women in Saudi Arabia is taking a huge economic, political, social, religious and educational toll on Saudi society. Read More…

Send a Text Message and She is Gone
Blackberries, mobile phones and the internet are probably more utilized as means of communication in Saudi Arabia than anywhere else in the world. This is due to severe censorship, razor-sharp gender segregation and the lack of all forms of free expression. Read More…

First Victim of Naif’s Appointment
A group of Saudi progressive men, Ansar Al-Mar’ah (Supporters of Women), has been seeking the government’s approval to establish an organization to support full rights for Saudi women; but the group decided to call it quits after Naif was appointed deputy to the King. Read More…

A Determined Saudi Woman
In a country where obstacles against women’s rights and progress are institutionalized and monumental, Reem Asaad, a professor at Dar Al-Hekmah Women’s College in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, decided to challenge the Saudi labor ministry for failing to implement a Saudi law to employ women in department stores that sell women’s lingerie. Read More…

By any standard, it is a sale of young girls
After a father arranged for his clueless eight-year-old daughter to marry a fifty-eight-year-old man for 30,000 Saudi Riyals ($8,000), her mother tried to petition her local court to emancipate her child from her new enslavement status, but was told by the presiding judge to take a hike. Read More…

When the Rope broke, he finished her off
Violent acts against women in Saudi Arabia are committed frequently and in different forms, and are hardly reported. This is due to the lack of legal recourse for women, as well as the designation of women by the Saudi political and judicial institutions as less than full human beings and citizens. The Saudi courts are staffed and operated by religious judges who consider women to be the property of men, and who deem that men can decide a woman’s fate as they wish. Read More…

One Eye for Women is the Answer
According to the Saudi self-appointed religious interpreters of all matters concerning women, Saudi women should completely be cloaked except for one eye. Obsessed with women’s sexuality, the Saudi clerics feel that if women show two eyes, they would trick men into thinking the most objectionable and sinful thoughts. Read More…

The Resilience and Courage of Saudi Women
“Ruwaida al-Habis, right, sits next to her two injured brothers Muhammad, center, and Al-Hassan at a Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008. When Ruwaida al-Habis’ father and two brothers were burned in a house fire, she had no choice but to break Saudi Arabia’s ban on women drivers – getting behind the family car’s wheel to get them to a clinic fast.” Under normal conditions and in modern societies, the story of this courageous woman would have been the normal, logical and right thing to do. Saudi Arabia is the only nation on this planet where women are officially banned from driving, even in life or death situations. Read More…

Trafficking of Expatriate Maids in Black Markets
Reducing Saudi women’s status to that of second class citizens makes it that much easier for Saudi men to treat expatriate women as slaves. Although no reliable statistics exist, Saudi Arabia hosts an estimated seven to nine million expatriates to prevent the Saudi economy and public services from collapsing. A sizable number of the mostly poverty stricken Asian expatriates in Saudi Arabia are women dubbed as maids, essentially slaves, used for whatever their employers or masters desire. Read More…

Severe Exclusion of Saudi Women Continues
The Saudi government, its rigid religious establishment and its apologists, including some Saudi women, fault tradition and religion for denying the overwhelming majority of Saudi women full citizenship at home and the right to compete in domestic, regional and global activities such as the Olympics. Read More…

Protecting Women From Whom?
At a point in history in which women are competing for everything society has to offer, the Saudis are still mired in endless debates as to whether or not women are capable of working, driving, using common sense, protecting themselves, thinking rationally, or even worthy of full citizenship. The Saudi men, from the king down to the garbage collectors, see women as nothing more than second class citizens, who must be controlled and remain dependent on and protected from predators. The question is: who are these predators? Read More…

International Women’s Day
The Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia (CDHR) applauds, honors and supports International Women’s Day. The theme this year is “investing in women and girls,” and focuses on women at the national level. International Women’s Day “serves to highlight the fact that securing peace and social progress and the full enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms require the active participation, equality and development of women. Read More…

They Are Allowed to Hurt, but not to Improve their Health
If ironies did not exist prior to the founding of the Saudi-Wahhabi State in 1932, they would have been invented at that time. Case in point is the status of Saudi women. For example, women can be doctors, nurses and professors to save men’s lives and educate them, yet they cannot go to medical or other schools without a man’s permission, as they are not trusted to make rational decisions and look after their own affairs. Read More…

Improved Situation for Saudi Women?
UN Human Right’s Rapporteur, Dr. Yakin Erturk, was recently invited by the Saudi government to witness the “progress” made by Saudi women in recent years. Like all visitors invited by the Saudi government, Dr. Erturk met with many government officials, who are either afraid to speak out or have financial and other interests in maintaining the status quo as is. Like other government invitees, she was treated royally, praised for her efforts, and told that the problems women and other Saudi citizens face have nothing to do with politics, but with religion and tradition. Due to their ignorance of Saudi society and the tyrannical political system that rules it, many people in the West, regardless of their nationality, take the word of these Saudi officials for face value. Read More…

Benefit Saudi Women?
Like Harvard and Georgetown universities, UC Berkeley is compromising its democratic and academic principles for Saudi money. UC and its Near Eastern Department have done nothing to promote academic freedom in Saudi Arabia, nor have they done anything to promote freedom of expression, civil society, women’s and minority rights, or religious freedom. On the other hand, this influential institution is willing to take Saudi money, which in effect validates the Saudi government’s policies and its austere interpretation of the Quran and Shari’a law. Read More…

One Wife Won’t Do
A Saudi delegation was recently questioned by a U.N. watchdog group in Geneva, concerning the lack of progress in women’s equality in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi delegation attributed the failure to implement International Women’s Rights Declarations to a variety of factors, including tradition, religion, and the sexual needs of men. Read More…

They Ran out of Ammunition - Women Do Exist and Can Rent Hotel Rooms
Finally, the Saudi ruling religious, political and traditionalist elites, along with their religious devotees, realize that they are running out of the centuries-old fictitious excuses which they have used to deny women their basic human, divine and natural rights. They have decided now that women actually exist and are competent and able to rent a hotel room where they can sleep. This is instead of spending the night in a rented taxi in a dark and dangerous ally because they could not rent a hotel room without a male relative present. Read More…

Bhutto’s Assassination sends a Shrill Message
The assassination of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, is a great tragedy for Pakistan, for pro-democracy Muslims, and especially for Muslim women worldwide. With all of her shortcomings, Bhutto was pro-democracy and adamantly opposed to any tolerance of extremists. Read More…

Majority Supports Saudi Women’s Rights
According to a recent Gallup Survey, the majority of Saudi men and women who were interviewed support Saudi women’s rights to drive, have equal salary for equal jobs, and hold high positions in government. There is no doubt that there will be substantial opposition to any changes in the present male-dominant society in Saudi Arabia, but that is to be expected in countries where one segment of society has control over every domain, professional or otherwise. Read More…

In the News

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Fatima’s Lawyer Wants Her in Women’s Shelter

Women’s College Launches Course in Banking

Princess Adelah, Daughter of King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia: ‘Saudi Women Must Be Given the Opportunity to Participate in Social Development in All Areas’