{"id":281958,"date":"2016-09-26T12:01:47","date_gmt":"2016-09-26T16:01:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/?p=281958"},"modified":"2020-11-03T12:02:51","modified_gmt":"2020-11-03T17:02:51","slug":"saudi-women-file-petition-to-end-male-guardianship-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/tr\/saudi-women-file-petition-to-end-male-guardianship-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Saudi women file petition to end male guardianship system"},"content":{"rendered":"
RAEL\u2019S COMMENT:<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n
In the country that leads the \u201cHuman Rights Committee\u201d in the United Nations \u2026 laughable.<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A petition signed by more than 14,000 Saudi women calling for an end to the country’s male guardianship system is being handed to the government.<\/p>\n

Women must have the consent of a male guardian to travel abroad, and often need permission to work or study.<\/p>\n

Support for the first large-scale campaign on the issue grew online in response to a trending Twitter hashtag.<\/p>\n

Activist Aziza Al-Yousef told the BBC she felt “very proud” of the campaign, but now needed a response.<\/p>\n

In the deeply conservative Islamic kingdom, a woman must have permission from her father, brother or other male relative – in the case of a widow, sometimes her son – to obtain a passport, marry or leave the country.<\/p>\n

Many workplaces and universities also demand a guardian’s consent for female employees and students, although it is not legally required.<\/p>\n

Renting a flat, undergoing hospital treatment or filing a legal claim often also require a male guardian’s permission, and there is very little recourse for women whose guardians abuse them or severely limit their freedom.<\/p>\n

In July, an Arabic Twitter hashtag which translates as “Saudi women want to abolish the guardianship system” went viral after a Human Rights Watch report was published on the issue.<\/p>\n

Saudi women tweeted comments, videos and artwork calling for change. Bracelets saying “I Am My Own Guardian” appeared.<\/p>\n

The women counted on the petition all gave their full names, though more signed anonymously. Hundreds of women – one estimate suggests as many as 2,500 – bombarded the Saudi King’s office over the weekend with telegrams containing personal messages backing the campaign.<\/p>\n

Human Rights Watch researcher Kristine Beckerle, who worked on the report, described the response as “incredible and unprecedented”.<\/p>\n

“I was flabbergasted – not only by the scale, but the creativity with which they’ve been doing it,” she said. “They’ve made undeniably clear they won’t stand to be treated as second-class citizens any longer, and it’s high time their government listened.”<\/p>\n

However, there has been opposition from some Saudi women, with an alternative Arabic hashtag, which translates as #TheGuardianshipIsForHerNotAgainstHer, gaining some traction, and opinion articles, like\u00a0this one on the Gulf News website, arguing that the system should be reformed and applied better.<\/p>\n

Ms Yousef, who was stopped by police in 2013 for breaking the country’s ban on women driving, said she did not expect any negative consequences from the petition: “I’m not worried, I’m not doing anything wrong,” she said.<\/p>\n

She and another activist took the petition to the Royal Court in person on Monday, but were advised to send it by mail.<\/p>\n

She said a key demand is that an age between 18 and 21 be designated, above which a woman be “treated like an adult”.<\/p>\n

“In every aspect, the important issue is to treat a woman as a full citizen,” she said.<\/p>\n

She and other activists first raised the issue five years ago. “We never had a problem with campaigning, but the problem is there is no answer. But we always hope – without hope, you cannot work,” she said.<\/p>\n

There has been no official response to the petition yet.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-middle-east-37469860<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RAEL\u2019S COMMENT: In the country that leads the \u201cHuman Rights Committee\u201d in the United Nations \u2026 laughable.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":281959,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-281958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/noproxy.rael.org\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}