Denied the right to travel without consent from their male
guardians and banned from driving, women in Saudi Arabia are now
monitored by an electronic system that tracks any cross-border
movements.
Since last week, Saudi women’s male guardians began receiving text
messages on their phones informing them when women under their custody
leave the country, even if they are travelling together.
Manal al-Sherif, who became the symbol of a campaign launched last year
urging Saudi women to defy a driving ban, began spreading the
information on Twitter, after she was alerted by a couple.
The husband, who was travelling with his wife, received a text message
from the immigration authorities informing him that his wife had left
the international airport in Riyadh.
“The authorities are using technology to monitor women,” said columnist
Badriya al-Bishr, who criticised the “state of slavery under which women
are held” in the ultra-conservative kingdom.
Women are not allowed to leave the kingdom without permission from their
male guardian, who must give his consent by signing what is known as
the “yellow sheet” at the airport or border.
The move by the Saudi authorities was swiftly condemned on social
network Twitter -- a rare bubble of freedom for millions in the kingdom
-- with critics mocking the decision.
“Hello Taliban, herewith some tips from the Saudi e-government!” read one post.
“Why don’t you cuff your women with tracking ankle bracelets too?” wrote Israa.
“Why don’t we just install a microchip into our women to track them around?” joked another.
“If I need an SMS to let me know my wife is leaving Saudi Arabia, then
I’m either married to the wrong woman or need a psychiatrist,” tweeted
Hisham.
The trigger
But what provoked the new control
method? Local media has reported that controversy caused by the escape
of a Saudi woman to Sweden in recent month triggered the move.
The Saudi woman was reported to have converted to Christianity and fled
the country, but she denied earlier reports of her conversion and said
she wants to return to Saudi Arabia, local daily Al-Yaum reported in
July.
The 30-year-old woman also denied that she appeared in a YouTube video
posted on July 10 where a veiled woman who was thought to be her claims
to have converted to Christianity after having a dream.
“I am a Muslim, I’m fasting in Ramadan and I will not change my religion until judgment day,” she told the newspaper.
The woman said she was facing some family problem when her boss, a
Lebanese-national, convinced her that the solution to her problems was
to leave Saudi Arabia to a freer country.
“A Lebanese man and another Saudi colleague helped me flee Saudi Arabia
to Bahrain, and from there to Qatar before going onwards to Lebanon,”
she said. She alleges that when she arrived in Beirut she was taken to a
monastery where she was asked to work as a maid.
The woman’s father filed a lawsuit against the two men for helping his
daughter leave the country without his knowledge. The Lebanese man was
reportedly jailed Monday in the city of Khobar on the eastern coast of
Saudi Arabia.
The kingdom applies a strict interpretation of Shariah, or Islamic law,
and is the only country in the world where women are not allowed to
drive.
No law specifically forbids women in Saudi Arabia from driving, but the
interior minister formally banned them after 47 women were arrested and
punished after demonstrating in cars in November 1990.
Last year, King Abdullah granted women the right to vote and run in the
2015 municipal elections, a historic first for the country.
In January, the 89-year-old monarch appointed Sheikh Abdullatif Abdel
Aziz al-Sheikh, a moderate, to head the notorious religious police
commission, which enforces the kingdom’s severe version of sharia law.
Following his appointment, Sheikh banned members of the commission from
harassing Saudi women over their behaviour and attire, raising hopes a
more lenient force will ease draconian social constraints in the
country.
But the kingdom’s “religious establishment” is still to blame for the
discrimination of women in Saudi Arabia, says liberal activist Suad
Shemmari.
“Saudi women are treated as minors throughout their lives even if they
hold high positions,” said Shemmari, who believes “there can never be
reform in the kingdom without changing the status of women and treating
them” as equals to men.
But the many restrictions on women have led to high rates of female unemployment, officially estimated at around 30 percent.
