The Saudi royal family also had to deal with the realities of public opinion at home, since a significant number of Saudis have become increasingly critical of the regime as a result of the US military presence. As the biggest oil exporter in the world, the location of some of the most advanced military installations in the Middle East that the United States has access to, and the region’s biggest consumer of American goods and services particularly weapons, Saudi Arabia has long been a vital strategic ally of the American government.
Restrictions on freedom of expression
Rahaf Mohammed, the Saudi woman who escaped her reportedly violent family, has provided fresh insight into the plight of the innumerable women imprisoned in Saudi Arabia’s harsh male guardianship system. Under the male guardianship system, women are subjected to systemic discrimination, are vulnerable to domestic violence, and have limited options for refuge when abused.
As a result, some women risk their lives to attempt to exit the country. A man is in charge of a Saudi woman’s life from the moment of her birth until her death under the male guardianship system. All Saudi women are required to have a male guardian, usually a husband or father, but occasionally a brother or even a son, who is able to make a variety of important choices on their behalf. Women are practically treated as perpetual legal adolescents by the Saudi government. Saudi Arabia hasn’t done anything to change the system, which continues to be the biggest obstacle to women’s rights in the nation.
Gender discrimination and women’s Rights
As per Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, Rahaf Mohammed’s valiant pursuit of freedom has brought to light a fresh range of discriminatory practices and laws that deprive Saudi women of their agency and subject them to mistreatment. Rahaf demonstrated how absurdly disconnected the Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman‘s desire to be seen as a reformer of women’s rights from the reality of the government’s attempts to track down escaping women and to torture campaigners for women’s rights while they are imprisoned.
Although there are male guardianship systems in place in other Middle Eastern nations, Saudi Arabia’s system is by far the strictest in terms of both the scope of its rules and regulations and the efforts made by the government to enforce them. Human Rights Watch’s 2016 study, “Boxed In: Women and Saudi Arabia’s Male Guardianship System,” details the effects of these laws and regulations on women’s life. Ten reasons why Saudi women leave their homeland are listed below.
Persecution of religious minorities
Saudi Arabia is the nation that imposes the strictest travel restrictions on its female citizens. The Interior Ministry puts limitations on women that include need their male guardian’s consent before they may seek for a passport or leave the country. In actuality, guardians can get a court order to force a woman to return to the family home, and some women are forbidden from leaving their homes without it. It wasn’t until June 2018 that women were permitted to drive in Saudi Arabia. It is extremely difficult for Saudi women to leave the country due to travel restrictions. In order to alter their travel authorization settings or flee from family members while abroad, many turn to breaking into the phone of their male guardian. The Saudi government restricts a woman’s freedom to marry by mandating that she have a male guardian’s consent. Before a religious official performs the marriage ceremony, a woman must often express her agreement orally. She must also sign the marriage contract with her male guardian. Men, however, are permitted to have up to four wives at once.
Punitive measures and lack of due process
There is no minimum age requirement for marriage in Saudi Arabia, and the country’s media often reports on child weddings, sometimes involving girls as young as eight. The Saudi Arabia Shura Council, an advisory body, overwhelmingly approved a proposal on January 9, 2019, raising the legal age of marriage to 18 while allowing females between the ages of 15 and 18 to marry with permission from the court. The Saudi Arabian Council of Ministers must publish the proposal before it may become law. Similar to other nations, domestic violence affects a large number of women in Saudi Arabia. The Ministry of Labor and Social Development revealed that it had received 8,016 reports of physical and psychological abuse over the one-year period ending on October 13, 2015, the majority of which included violence between spouses. Saudi Arabia made domestic abuse a crime in 2013, but advocates have questioned the law’s lax application.