Reform or Repression? An Assessment of Women’s Rights in Saudi Arabia
On March 8, 2022, the King of Saudi Arabia, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, issued Royal Decree No. M/73, promulgating Saudi Arabia’s first Personal Status Law. The law came into force on June 18, 2022, and intended to preserve the family as a social and economic institution in society and limit and codify the discretionary powers of the Saudi Arabian judges. While Saudi officials including Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have described the law as ‘comprehensive’ and ‘progressive’, international human rights organisations including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have criticised the legislation arguing that the Personal Status Law enshrines discrimination against women and deprives them of their ability to enjoy fundamental freedoms, including civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights. Gender inequality, however, is not a new phenomenon in Saudi Arabia. Gender roles in Saudi Arabia derive from Islamic tradition and local interpretations of Sharia law, a set of moral rules and guidelines for Muslims to be followed in their personal and public life. While many of today’s restrictions have been in place since the creation of the Saudi state in 1932, before 1979 they were often not strictly enforced. However, the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the subsequent Grand Mosque seizure prompted the Saudi government to introduce stricter enforcement of Sharia law, and this led to the adoption of new laws and regulations that limit women’s freedoms. The main aspects and impact of the laws and regulations that govern and restrict Saudi Arabian women’s agency will be discussed below.
Women’s Civil and Political Rights
Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy, meaning that the King holds absolute, autocratic power. While both men and women are excluded from meaningful political participation, women face additional barriers. Before 2015, women were excluded from the suffrage and from running as candidates in municipal and local elections. The 2015 election, however, marked the first time in the country’s history that women were allowed to vote and run for municipal government positions, an opportunity that more than 1,000 female candidates and more than 100,000 female voters took advantage of. The granting of the vote to women followed the appointment in 2013 of the first thirty Saudi women to the Shura Council, a 150-member committee of selected scholars, experts, and specialists that advise the King on social, economic, and political matters. Yet, while progress has been made in increasing female political participation, Saudi women continue to face political repression and incarceration when they challenge the status quo. In August 2022, Nourah bint Saeed al-Qahtani, a Saudi citizen, was sentenced to 45 years in prison for using Twitter to express her opinions. Weeks earlier, University of Leeds doctoral student Salma al-Shehab was handed a 34-year prison sentence for having a Twitter account and for following and retweeting Saudi Arabian dissidents and human rights activists. Although the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) in June 2023 found the detention of the two women to be arbitrary and called for their immediate release, both women continue to serve lengthy prison terms for their activities. In doing so, they join an unidentified number of women human rights activists and defenders targeted and imprisoned by the Saudi authorities for their beliefs and activism.
Women’s Economic and Educational Rights
Saudi Arabia’s economy is based primarily on the export of oil and other energy products. In 2016, however, the Saudi government launched its Vision 2030 strategy, a state-directed initiative that aims to reform the Saudi Arabian economy and reduce the country’s dependency on the oil industry. At the heart of Vision 2030 is a commitment to increasing employment rates and, in particular, female participation in the labour force. According to the General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT), women made up 35,9 per cent of the Saudi Arabian labour force in the third quarter of 2023, a remarkable increase from the 19,7 per cent female labour force participation rate of 2018. Saudi women have found employment in an expanding number of private and public sector occupations, including the accommodation and food sector, administrative and support services, and construction and manufacturing, while others have started their own businesses. The shift in women’s employment patterns reflects a larger trend in Saudi Arabia towards female empowerment through education and has been aided by the lifting of the women’s driving ban in 2018 which increased women’s relative independence from men. However, while Saudi women have started to enter the workforce in increasing numbers, they face barriers in accessing high-skilled work. Although women account for almost 50 per cent of Saudi Arabia’s Bachelor, Master, and PhD students, many women find themselves confined to low-skilled, low-income jobs. Women are overrepresented in education, service, and health related occupations, and many women face a lack of employment mobility. Furthermore, a recent study from Al Nahda, a Saudi Arabian non-profit organisation dedicated to the empowerment of women, found that for every 100 riyals earned by Saudi men, women earn just 57 riyals, even after adjusting for differences in education and experience.
Family and Divorce Laws
Family relations in Saudi Arabia are governed by legal norms and laws that favour the interests of men over women. Under the male guardianship system, women are legal minors and need the permission of their male guardian (normally a father, husband, or other male relative) to get married. Sex outside of marriage is strictly forbidden and abortion illegal except in cases where the mother’s life is in danger. Although recent reforms and law amendments have removed the requirement for women to obtain their husband’s permission to work, study, get a passport, or travel abroad, women are still not equal before the law. Once married, a woman is required to obey her husband in a ‘reasonable manner’ and may lose her husband’s financial support if she refuses without a ‘legitimate excuse’ to have sex with him or live in a marital home. If a woman wants to divorce her husband, she must obtain her husband’s consent or go through a court and request a divorce. The husband, on the other hand, has the right to unilaterally divorce his wife. If the divorcing couple has children, these are to be cared for by a custodian, the default being the mother. However, should a woman with children wish to remarry, she risks losing the custody of her children as the Personal Status Law prohibits a woman from marrying a man who is a stranger to her children unless it is in the children’s ‘best interest’. Moreover, if the children are living with the mother, she must obtain her new spouse’s consent for her children to continue living with her, a consent that can be revoked at any time. Regardless of custody arrangements, the children’s father remains the default guardian.
Concluding Thoughts
The status of women in Saudi Arabia has undergone remarkable change over the last few decades. Saudi women have come a long way in their quest for freedom and equality, and they are now free to work, drive, marry, and travel without the permission of a male guardian. Yet, Saudi women continue to face restrictions in political, economic, and social life and they continue to be marginalised and underrepresented in positions of power and leadership. In the 2023 Global Gender Gap Index, Saudi Arabia ranked 131 among a total of 146 countries, and this highlights the need for further reform. For women to become truly equal in Saudi society, a change in attitudes and perception is necessary: one that moves beyond the traditional conception of women as subordinate members of their communities.
Photo Credits: Reuters / Faisal Al Nasser | Edited by the GorStra Team