FREEDOM
HOUSE
Women’s Rights in the
Middle East & North Africa
http://www.freedomhouse.org/media/pressrel/052005.htm
Saudi Arabia
by Eleanor Abdella
Doumato
Population: 24,100,000
GDP Per Capita (PPP): $12,650
Economy:
Mixed capitalist-statist
Ranking on UN HDI: 77 out of 177
Polity:
Traditional monarchy
Literacy: Male 84.1% / Female 69.5%
Percent Women Economically Active:
22%
Date
of Women’s Suffrage: No
suffrage
Women’s
Fertility Rate:
5.7
Percent Urban/Rural: Urban 83% / Rural 17%
Country Ratings for Saudi
Arabia
Nondiscrimination and Access to
Justice:
1.2
Autonomy, Security, and Freedom of the
Person:
1.1
Economic Rights and Equal Opportunity:
1.4
Political Rights and Civic Voice: 1.0
Social and Cultural Rights: 1.6
(Scale of 1 to 5: 1
represents the lowest and 5 the highest level of freedom women have to exercise
their rights)
Introduction
The
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy that has been ruled by the Al
Saud family since the country’s unification in 1932. Saudi Arabia’s 1992 Basic
Law declares that the Quran and the
Sunna[i]
are the country’s constitution. Succession is limited to descendants of Abd
al-Aziz Ibn Saud, the founder of the kingdom. Crown Prince Abdullah has for the
most part governed the country’s affairs since 1997 because the current king,
Fahd, suffered a stroke in 1995. The monarch appoints both the Council of
Ministers, which is responsible for government administration, and the
120-member Majlis al-Shura
(Consultative Council), which studies legislation and offers advice to the
ruling family. The king also appoints emirs, all currently members of the Al
Saud family, to administer the kingdom’s regional sectors. Women are legally
prohibited from participating in any public decision-making bodies. Neither men
nor women have the right to vote in Saudi Arabia, and political parties are
forbidden. In October 2003, the government announced plans to hold elections for
half of the members of municipal councils in 2004.
Saudi Arabia, which occupies most of the Arabian
Peninsula, is the world’s leading oil producer and exporter. The GDP per capita
is $12,650. The kingdom holds a special place of importance for Muslims all over
the world, in that it houses two of the holiest cities of Islam, Mecca and
Medina. Mecca becomes a destination for some 2 million pilgrims who travel there
for the annual Hajj (pilgrimage). The
country’s total population is about 24.1 million, with foreign residents on
temporary work assignments comprising about 67 percent of the
workforce.[ii] About 10 percent of the population are Shi’a, who are
discriminated against in hiring, education, and government services. The
unemployment rate for Saudi nationals is between 25 percent and 30 percent.
In
recent years, Saudi Arabia has made some progress in women’s education and
employment. However, gender discrimination is built into Saudi Arabia’s
governmental and social structures and is integral in the country’s practice and
interpretation of their particular version of religious teachings. Women’s
access to employment opportunities is limited, and they do not enjoy the full
benefits of citizenship or legal adulthood. Reformers within Saudi Arabia who
are willing to take risks for the sake of democratization have recognized the
need for change. This represents an unprecedented opening for the international
community to support efforts toward reform.
Nondiscrimination and Access to
Justice
Saudi Arabia follows its own state-sponsored version of
Sunni Islam, known as Wahhabism,[iii] which is considered one of the most conservative
interpretations of the faith. The government and judicial system are based on
the Saudi construction of Islamic law, which does not accept the premise that
men and women should be treated equally. The Saudi justice system lacks
procedures to insure due process, legal representation for defendants, or
protection from torture. Women are subject to tighter legal restrictions on
personal behavior than are men, and laws in general are applied arbitrarily,
with more latitude afforded to well-connected Saudi citizens than to
foreigners.
Article 8 of the country’s Basic Law declares equality
for all: “Government in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is based on the premise of
justice, consultation, and equality in accordance with the Islamic
Shari’ah.”[iv] Islamic law in Saudi Arabia, however, does not offer
equality to women. The text of the Quran and Hadith[v] are often
subject to individual interpretations that favor the position of men over women.
At the same time, Saudi Arabia is a hierarchical society that privileges
notables and the well connected over ordinary citizens and outsiders. It also
favors a hierarchical family model that values obedience, with the younger
deferring to the older and women deferring to men.[vi] Consequently, the biases built into the laws of the
kingdom and into their application reflect the biases in both society and
scripture. This is quite visible in the varying treatment of foreigners in Saudi
Arabia, where workers are treated differently depending on their country of
origin.
While Saudi Islamic law does not ensure equal rights for
men and women, the law is viewed as aiming to assure gender equivalence. This
means that rights in law should be balanced according to the prescribed rights
and duties of men and women in relation to each other. While most laws
discriminate against women, the principle of equivalence is believed to
sometimes work in women’s favor. For example, while daughters inherit half of
what sons inherit, by law women retain ownership of their own property after
marriage and have no obligation to spend their wealth on behalf of their
husbands or children. Married men, on the other hand, are obligated to provide
the full maintenance of their families. Similarly, the principle that men are
responsible for the protection of women means that in practice, men may be
obligated to stand in for women when it comes to dealing with government
bureaucracies or the courts. For instance, in Saudi Arabia, the head-to-toe
dress code (niqab and
abaya) is imposed on all women with the idea that it is a woman’s
obligation to ensure the moral behavior of men and protect the “honor” of her
family. Should a woman be admonished by the mutawwa‘in (foot-soldiers of
the Saudi government’s Society for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of
Vice) for not appearing sufficiently modest, or apprehended for immoral behavior
such as eating in a restaurant with an unrelated male, it is usually the woman’s
male guardian or her mahram (her
husband or closest male family relative) and not the woman herself, who is
likely to be punished by the court with either fines or imprisonment.
As
holders of Saudi nationality, women are at a disadvantage when it comes to
gaining access to the benefits of the state. Saudi women who marry a non-Saudi
are not permitted to pass their nationality on to their children, nor can their
husband receive Saudi nationality. A man with Saudi nationality who marries a
non-Saudi, however, is entitled to apply for, and receive, Saudi nationality for
his wife and children. Only Muslims can obtain Saudi citizenship. In 2002, women
were allowed to apply for their own individual identity cards, although they
must still obtain the permission of their mahram in order to do so. Before this,
women appeared as nationals in state records only by virtue of being included as
members of their father’s family, making it difficult or impossible for widowed,
abandoned, or single women to receive state subsidies or other benefits on their
own.
Women do not have equal access to the courts or an equal opportunity to obtain justice. Saudi women are not allowed to act as lawyers, and a woman seeking access to the courts must either work through a male lawyer, have a male relative represent her, or represent herself before a court of all-male judges. Consequently, a Saudi woman may be forced to provide intimate details of her legal, financial, or family affairs to male judges and lawyers. In cases involving divorce or child custody, women sometimes have to rely on their husbands, who are also their legal adversaries, to represent them. This, in effect, discourages Saudi women from pursuing access to justice at most levels. A woman is not considered a full person before the court. In accordance with the Saudi interpretation of Shari’a, the testimony of one man is equivalent to that of two women.
In
the penal code, men and women are assigned punishments for crimes according to
the Saudis’ version of Shari’a. In some cases, the penal code prescribes equal
punishment, and in others, the punishment is gender-specific. For example, for
purposes of compensation in cases of accidental death or injury, a woman’s worth
is always figured at half that of a man’s, as determined on analogy with the law
of inheritance.
Article 36 of the Basic Law[vii] prohibits arbitrary arrest and detention by any of the
arresting authorities in the Saudi kingdom, including agents of regional
governors, public security agencies, police departments, and drug, traffic, and
passport agencies, in addition to the mutawwa‘in. Nevertheless, laws and
regulations are applied arbitrarily with reference to the status of individual
litigants and defendants. Foreigners, Shi’a, and less-privileged citizens are
subject to arbitrary arrest.
During 2003, there were cases in which the mutawwa‘in
harassed, abused, and detained citizens and foreigners of both genders.[viii] Women of many nationalities were detained for what is
considered inappropriate behavior, such as dining in restaurants with unrelated
males, riding in a taxi with a male who is not their relative, or appearing in
public with their heads uncovered.[ix] Offenses such as being alone in the company of an
unrelated person of the opposite gender may be punished by caning. Global
attention focused on the actions of the mutawwa‘in in March of 2002, when they
were accused of interfering in rescue efforts during a fire in a girls’ public intermediate school in
Mecca in order to enforce Saudi Arabia’s obligatory Islamic dress
code. Some of the fleeing girls were
reportedly not wearing the required head coverings and abayas (long black
cloaks). A report prepared by Mecca’s Civil Defense Department noted that mutawwa‘in were at the school’s main
gate and “intentionally obstructed the efforts to evacuate the girls. This
resulted in the increased number of casualties.” The fire claimed the lives of
at least 14 girl students.[x]
Especially vulnerable to rights abuse are women from the
Philippines, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and other countries who work in Saudi Arabia
as domestic helpers. Being unmarried, or living without their husbands, migrant
women are subject to accusations of wrongdoing that don’t apply to men, such as
“illegal pregnancy,”[xi] witchcraft, or being in any public place, especially at
night, where they may be assumed to be soliciting for prostitution. At the same
time, domestic workers are always vulnerable to sexual exploitation and other
abuse by their Saudi employers. They cannot complain to police because reporting
an employer’s misconduct may be considered a false allegation and hence criminal
behavior on the part of the woman worker. Women interviewed by Human Rights
Watch in Malaz prison in Riyadh in 2003 indicated that they had no access to
lawyers and were unsure of the charges against them, even though the code of
criminal procedures that came into effect in 2002 recognizes the right to legal
counsel for criminal suspects.[xii]
Saudi Arabia ratified the UN Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 2000, with
reservations, stating, “In case of contradiction between any term of the
Convention and the norms of Islamic law, the Kingdom is not under obligation to
observe the contradictory terms of the Convention.”[xiii] Based on Saudi Arabia’s interpretation and
implementation of Islamic law, this reservation acts to nullify some of CEDAW’s
articles. To date, the Saudi government has not filed any follow-up reports to
CEDAW, nor has it taken any steps to bring its national laws into conformity
with the universal standards on women’s human rights.
Recommendations
1. The government should review all laws and policies and
amend the Basic Law to ensure gender equality and to prohibit the discrimination
of women and foreign nationals.
2.
The government should remove all reservations to CEDAW and take steps to
implement it locally by bringing national laws in conformity with
CEDAW.
Autonomy, Security, and Freedom of the
Person
Freedom of religion is highly restricted in Saudi Arabia.
Muslims in Saudi Arabia are required to accept the state-sponsored Wahhabi
interpretation of Islam; all other Muslim schools of thought or jurisprudence
and other forms of Islamic ritual are illicit, including Shi’ism in all its
variant forms, as well as Sufism. Public practice or preaching of religions
other than Islam are forbidden and punished. Saudi women, who may not agree with
the more conservative and patriarchal interpretations of Islam in Saudi Arabia,
do not have open or safe ways to express their dissent or to present alternative
interpretations of Islam. Despite the historical role played by women in early
Islam in what is now Saudi Arabia, women are not allowed to fill any leadership
positions in the country’s religious institutions. Women are encouraged to pray
at home, where they are considered “safer,” although solitary prayer at home
deprives women of the benefit of communal worship, which is preferred in Islam.
Women’s freedom of movement in Saudi Arabia is limited
through a combination of legal and social controls and religiously sanctioned
local practices. While some Saudis perceive the laws and practices that govern
women’s movement as necessities to insure the protection of women, others view
them as insuring the perpetuation of male dominance. Modern restrictions on
women’s movement are basically derived from two practices in Saudi society.
First, a woman is not to be outside her own neighborhood except in the company
of her mahram; and second, an
unrelated man and woman are not to be in physical contact with one another. A
woman may not drive cars, check into a hotel alone, rent an apartment for
herself, or get on an airplane without her mahram’s permission. She is not
supposed to ride in a car unless the driver is her mahram, though women do so
out of necessity.
Visible and invisible spatial boundaries also limit
women’s movement. Mosques, most ministries, public streets, and food stalls
(supermarkets not included) are male territory. Furthermore, accommodations that
are available for men are always superior to those accessible to women, and
public space, such as parks, zoos, museums, libraries, or the national Jinadriyah Festival of Folklore and Culture, is
created for men, with only limited times allotted for women’s visits.
Restrictions on women’s movement have a negatively
disproportionate effect on foreign women, especially women from developing
countries. Saudi employers routinely take workers’ passports on arrival and will
hold them until the employee departs the kingdom. A foreign woman worker is
therefore restricted from traveling outside her town of residence and prohibited
from leaving the country of her own volition. Furthermore, some employers use
the mahram rule to justify locking women employees in at night.[xiv] Prohibited from driving themselves, unable to afford
private transportation, and a lack of
public transportation, restricts the options of working women to walking
on the streets, precisely where they can be apprehended by the religious police
on an accusation of solicitation.
Laws
of personal status follow the Shari’a, as interpreted and
applied in Saudi Arabia, which favors males in matters of marriage, divorce,
child custody, and inheritance. Marriage is recognized by a contract between the
husband-to-be and the mahram
of the intended bride. The marriage contract provides room for the
amount of the mahr (money or other valuables gifted to the bride-to-be by the
prospective husband, which she is legally entitled to retain) and allows for the
insertion of marriage stipulations. An example of these stipulations could
involve the husband-to-be’s pledge that should he choose to take a second wife,
the bride would be entitled to an automatic divorce. Stipulations that run
counter to the Saudis’ version of Shari’a, however, may be disallowed in
a Saudi court. The marriage contract requires the bride to specify whether she
is a virgin, widow, or divorcee, but does not require the husband to do the
same. While the formal contract seems rigid and excludes the bride, the contract
itself is merely the legal confirmation of decisions taken jointly by two
families, and most often today, jointly by the husband-to-be and his prospective
bride. The degree to which a woman participates in decisions surrounding her own
marriage depends entirely on her family and her own personal
situation.
The
husband is entitled to a divorce without explanation simply by registering a
statement of his intention with a court and repeating it three times. By law, a
man is obligated to provide maintenance for his wife for a period after divorce,
but there are no enforcement mechanisms. The wife, by contrast, may obtain a
divorce only if her husband granted her the right of divorce at the time of the
signing of their marriage contract. The majority of women in Saudi Arabia lack
this right, in which case, a Muslim wife can only obtain a legal divorce by
proving in court desertion or impotence on the part of the husband, which is
humiliating and logistically burdensome. She may also buy her way out of the
marriage through a method known as
khul, in which a wife usually must
forgo all her maintenance rights and mahr.
A
woman is constrained in seeking a divorce, or in leaving a husband who has taken
a second wife, because her children legally belong to the children’s father, and
so to leave him means to give up her children. For Saudi women nationals, there
are some mitigating factors such as family influence in negotiating with, or in
some cases, buying off either the court officials or the husband. In addition,
some judges may decide to consider the fitness of the parents in awarding
custody. Nevertheless, even in cases in which the father is patently unable to
parent properly, paternal grandparents may have a prior claim to the children
over the mother. Non-nationals, mostly foreign women because Saudi women rarely
marry foreign men, have few options, and once the father has physical custody of
the children inside the kingdom, there are no legal avenues within the Saudi
justice system to pursue custody.
The
government of Saudi Arabia outlawed slavery in 1962, but the country is a
destination for trafficked persons.[xv] Human Rights Watch has documented cases of workers
forced into situations of coerced labor or slave-like conditions. Some female
foreign workers are trapped in places of employment, especially private homes,
and are unable to leave the premises, forced to work very long hours for payment
that may never be delivered, deprived of food and sleep, and subjected to sexual
abuse.[xvi] There is no reported information on Saudi women
nationals living in conditions of servitude, but women can be trapped in
slave-like conditions as a result of poverty, illiteracy, physical isolation, or
dependence on the mahram. This
problem is exacerbated by the Saudi concept of “obedience due the husband,”
which is also incorporated in the schoolbooks of the national curriculum.
In
2001, the Council of Ministers approved a 225-article penal code, under which
the use of torture is forbidden.[xvii] Nevertheless, torture is a known practice in Saudi
prisons.[xviii] Once apprehended, a person may be held incommunicado and
subjected to torture, commonly used to extract confessions that are presented in
court as conclusive evidence of the detained person’s guilt.[xix] In addition to prison torture, Saudi authorities
regularly implement their version of Shari’a punishments: flogging,
amputation, and beheading are inflicted on both men and women.[xx] In almost all such cases, the accused do not get due
process of law, and foreigners in particular are at the mercy of Saudi police.
There is no evidence, however, to suggest that women fare worse in regard to
torture or mutilation than men.
Domestic violence and marital rape are problems that are
well known in Saudi Arabia but never discussed publicly. Saudi political culture
promotes a mythology of the Muslim family, “the fundamental building block of
society,” in which each person is allocated rights and duties and derives
justice through membership. At the same time, the privacy of women is fused with
ideals of family “honor.” Consequently, society and media in general cannot talk
about the reality of domestic violence without challenging public myths about
themselves, and women in particular find it extremely difficult to talk about
their personal situation without the fear of damaging their family’s “honor” and
their own reputation.
In
April 2004, television host Rania al-Baz broke the wall of silence when she
allowed photographs to be made public of her battered face after she had been
beaten and choked by her husband. Despite the outpouring of interest and
sympathy that the disclosure evoked, the al-Baz incident may not have
established a precedent for other women to come forward, or have changed social
attitudes toward domestic violence. The outcome of the al-Baz case illustrates
how powerful these social constraints continue to be for women and how domestic
violence continues to be viewed as a family matter. Al-Baz’s husband was
sentenced to only six months and 300 lashes and was then released after serving
only half that sentence once he worked out an arrangement with al-Baz, who
wanted a divorce and custody of her sons.
There are no laws in Saudi Arabia that protect women from
gender-based violence, domestic violence, or marital rape. These acts are not
accepted grounds for divorce, and one woman’s testimony of violence is often not
accepted as evidence against her husband. Women who report sexual abuse or rape,
whether perpetrated by an employer or otherwise, are unlikely to find a
sympathetic hearing with judicial authorities. Instead of protection from the
perpetrator, women may find themselves accused of illicit sex. Usually the
burden to prove rape charges is on the woman victim, who must produce all
required witnesses. The only basis for a rape conviction is a confession or the
evidence of four witnesses.[xxi] Lack of government support services and shelters for
women victims of domestic violence and the absence of proper laws discourage
women from coming forward with such cases. No government policies or procedures
exist for training police or hospital officials to identify and support women
victims of violence, nor are there any legal guidelines to ensure that
perpetrators of violence receive punishment and do not harass their victims.
Recommendations
1. The government should allow Saudi women to study and
practice law in the country.
2. The government should enact laws against domestic
violence and assess the scope of this problem in order to formulate appropriate
responses to protect women, including confidential hotlines and shelter and
counseling services.
3. The government should hire women police officers to
handle cases involving women.
Economic Rights and Equal
Opportunity
Both
Saudi Arabian law and the country’s interpretation of Shari’a provide women with the right
to own and manage their property and other assets, including real estate, the
mahr given at marriage, and
earned income. However, by tradition, women who live among the less than 20
percent of the country’s population that is rural do not receive the inheritance
to which they are legally entitled, as they are considered to be supported by
their fathers or husbands.
In
general, women’s use of their personal wealth and property is restricted by a
combination of social customs, traditions, and religious values that have been
incorporated into the kingdom’s commercial regulations and bureaucratic rules.
The requirement for unrelated men and women to be separated in all public
places, including the work place, government ministries and offices, retail
establishments, hotels, restaurants, recreational facilities, and banks, greatly
affects women’s ability to independently own and use their assets, income, and
property. Based on gender-segregation rules and the mahram rule placing women under the
legal guardianship of men, there is an additional requirement that a woman who
wants to go into business must hire a male manager before receiving a commercial
license. It is apparent that in practice, the Saudi government has not taken
concrete steps to facilitate the right of women citizens to have full access to
their economic opportunities.
Saudi families have creatively found ways in which to
increase women’s economic opportunities, despite the constraints imposed on
women’s economic rights. They have successfully advocated for the establishment
of separate women’s bank branches and women-only shopping malls, while private
businesses and some ministries have set aside women-only offices. Most employed
women work in the gender-segregated schools, colleges, and universities, but
women entrepreneurs also invest in manufacturing and the service industries,
real estate, and education, most notably in private training institutes that
teach young women marketable skills. Women with professional skills such as
architecture, journalism, and translation also establish businesses in their own
homes.
Saudi customs involving gender-segregation have softened
in some circles over recent years. Saudi women have reappeared on local
television, and women health-care professionals, including doctors and nurses,
administrators, lab technicians, and social workers, work in a completely
mixed-gender environment in government hospitals. The government is actively
searching for ways to increase women’s participation in the work force and has
established industrial projects to employ women.[xxii]
Despite a growth in the number of employed Saudi women,
the state estimates that nearly six times more Saudi men were employed in the
kingdom than Saudi women in 2002.[xxiii] The state also estimates that despite the vast
diversification of educational opportunities, less than 10 percent of Saudi
women over the age of 15 are in the work force.[xxiv] The lack of Saudi government–approved “legitimate” (i.e.
gender-segregated) places of work is a major obstacle to women’s employment. The
Saudi government has not taken concrete steps to provide convenient, affordable,
or safe transportation or working space facilities for Saudi or foreign women
workers in the country.
In
regard to women and government employment, a limited number of positions are
available in education, and jobs in the ministries are largely the bailiwick of
men. Potential employers are hindered by the intricacies of the
burdensome mahram system
required for women working in business, as well as the additional costs incurred
to employ and work through male intermediaries. Employers’ reluctance to set up
a complex gender-segregated work facility for women is another obstacle.
Hundreds of thousands of administrative and secretarial jobs in the private
sector that could go to women are filled by foreign men as a result of gender
segregation. Finally, the labor law, while beneficial to women workers with its
generous maternity leave and time off during the work day for nursing, is at the
same time a deterrent to hiring women in the private sector due to the financial
burdens these benefits place on prospective
employers.
Education in Saudi Arabia is free at all levels. Female
students at the pre-college level have access to the same courses as male
students, except that, until 2003, girls were not allowed to take gym or a
course entitled “Civics.” While a high rate of illiteracy characterizes the
population above age 15 (30.5 percent for women and 15.9 percent for men), the
figures drop considerably for the younger population aged 15 to 24 (9.7 percent
for women and 5.1 percent for men), although the gender disparity
remains.[xxv] At the elementary level, only 56 percent of school-aged
girls are enrolled, which would suggest a possible parental gender bias when it
comes to sending daughters to school, except that, by comparison, only 60
percent of elementary school–aged boys are in school.[xxvi]
Women comprise an estimated 56 percent of the nearly
32,000 students in higher education institutions.[xxvii] However, women are not allowed to study engineering and
are not admitted to the King Fahd University for Oil and Minerals in Dhahran, on
the grounds that they would not be allowed to work in the profession for which
they would be trained. All Saudi universities that admit women have separate and
inferior facilities for their female students. When King Saud University, the
largest university in the kingdom, was built as a state-of-the-art institution
in the early 1980s to accommodate 25,000 male students, women were moved to the
old male campus of Riyadh University, which had no useful library. Nevertheless,
gender discrimination in higher education is changing. A new campus for women is
under construction in Riyadh, and there is a private college for girls in
Jeddah, the first in Saudi Arabia designed to follow an American
curriculum.
Recommendations
1.
The government should guarantee Saudi women equal facilities and equal access to
all fields of education.
2.
The government should continue its ongoing reforms in the educational sector and
should seek technical assistance from the international educational community to
incorporate a broader perspective of world events into the Saudi school
curriculum.
3.
The government should establish women’s studies centers and departments in Saudi
colleges and schools to help students, teachers, and the broader society obtain
a better understanding of women’s human rights issues.
4.
The government should provide all women with efficient, safe, and affordable
transportation and remove all restrictions on women’s driving, travel, and
employment.
Political Rights and Civic
Voice
There are no elections or political parties in Saudi Arabia, and there are no constitutionally guaranteed rights to free speech, press, or assembly. Neither Saudi nationals nor non-nationals have the right to vote or participate in any political activity. Forming trade unions, striking, and engaging in collective bargaining are forbidden. While women are becoming more active and visible in the current movement of reform, they are still marginalized, and women’s status remains a muted issue.
The Majlis al-Shura (Consultative Council) is an all-male 120-member advisory body first appointed by the king in 1992 with a mandate to study the king’s legislative initiatives. In 2004, at the same time as the prerogatives of the Council increased to include introducing new legislation and amending existing legislation, three women were appointed to serve on an advisory council to the Majlis but not to serve as members. The first-ever municipal elections, announced in 2003, are now slated to begin in 2005, but only males over the age of 21 who are not in military service will be allowed to vote and run for office. Saudi women are petitioning for the right to participate.
The weekly majlis (gathering) that is held by the king and provincial governors is the one institution that supposedly provides direct access to the government. This forum permits nationals to petition for redress of grievances or for personal favors. While the majlis is “open to all citizens and to anyone who has a complaint or a plea against an injustice,”[xxviii] women are traditionally not allowed to attend; they must send a written petition on their own behalf. On majlis days, female petitioners wait in the streets outside the meeting and try to hand their petitions through the windows of limousines.
Despite women’s need for legal representation in the courts and the availability of trained women lawyers, Saudi Arabia’s conservative ulama (religious scholars) forbid women to participate in the judiciary, either as judges or as lawyers.
Saudi men and women submitted a series of reform petitions to the government in 2003. While the petitioners pledged their allegiance to the monarchy, they demanded changes in the system of governance, including, albeit indirectly, calls for women’s rights. In January 2003, 104 citizens sent the crown prince a letter entitled “A Vision for the Nation and its Future” that called for social justice, the public election of the Majlis al-Shura, an end to corruption, an independent judiciary, and freedom of speech, assembly, and association. In April, a second petition signed by 450 Shi’a men and women, entitled “Partners in One Nation,” expressed sympathy with the signatories of the January letter and asked for relief from discrimination and for greater Shi’a representation in government positions, education reform, and religious freedom. On September 24, 2003, 306 Sunni and Shiite men and women sent another petition, “In Defense of the Nation,” calling for political reform, separation of powers, freedom of speech, right of assembly, and religious tolerance and cited as problems administrative corruption, fiscal irresponsibility, poverty, unemployment, and the second-class status of women. The petition also criticized the slow pace of reform and the absence of popular participation in decision-making, observing that the lack of freedom of expression fostered the growth of intolerance and extremism.
The crown prince, who has led efforts to respond to citizens’ concerns, gave a friendly reception to the petitioners, but subsequent events suggest that the ruling family is ambivalent about how far to allow reforms to go forward. In October 2003, the government opened a conference on human rights sponsored by the Saudi Red Crescent Society but later arrested 271 persons during a demonstration that included women advocating for political reform and the release of political prisoners.[xxix]
The much-heralded National Dialogue Conference held in August 2003 included the subject of the “rights and duties of women,” and the January 2004 Jeddah Economic Forum brought women’s roles in the economy to national attention. Saudi women, notably businesswomen, also spoke on Saudi economic growth at the Economic Forum and participated in the same room with men—some without hijab (complete head cover).[xxx] However, the Grand Mufti, Shaikh Abd al-Aziz Al as-Shaikh criticized women’s public presence in this mixed-gender gathering.
Saudi Arabia remains a country without the basic freedoms necessary for civil society to take root. Saudi nationals find it extremely difficult to start new organizations or women’s groups, and any new NGO involved in journalism, human rights, or the “national dialogue” is quickly co-opted by the government. In August of 2003, King Fahd approved the establishment of an official human rights organization, the National Organization for Human Rights, and appointed 9 women out of 41 members; the chairman and executive committee are also members of the Consultative Council.
Recommendations
1. The Saudi government should allow for political
parties and truly free and competitive elections in which both women and men
participate.
2. The government should ensure freedom of expression by
permitting independent press and radio programs to present alternative
viewpoints without the fear of attacks or intimidation by non-state actors.
3. The government should allow women’s human rights
groups to work freely and openly and provide them with security to prevent
attacks by non-state actors.
Social and Cultural
Rights
 
Categories: Releases