Dhimmi Watch: Human Rights Watch on Saudi women: "The authorities essentially treat adult women like legal minors who are not entitled to authority over their lives and well-being"

April 22, 2008

Human Rights Watch on Saudi women: "The authorities essentially treat adult women like legal minors who are not entitled to authority over their lives and well-being"

But according to the Saudis, there isn't really a problem. But then again, there is. But there isn't. But there kind of is. But it doesn't have anything to do with the government, and nor does Islamic law or tradition, except where it, you know, "elevates women." So... yeah. Next question.

"Saudi guardianship key to women rights abuse," from Reuters:

RIYADH - Saudi Arabia's system of male "guardianship" or wide-ranging control over women lies at the heart of rights abuse in the conservative Islamic state, U.S.-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Monday.

But a government spokesman said Saudi Arabia was disappointed the report had failed to highlight efforts to improve women's status and confused tradition with state policy.

"We agree with some points and we are working on that as a commission for the government, but we don't agree with the generalisation," said Zoheir al-Harithi, spokesman for Saudi's Human Rights Commission.

Saudi Arabia is one of the most conservative countries in the world. Tradition and the Islamic clerical establishment restrict women's movement, preventing them from driving cars.

Saudi women must usually obtain permission from a "guardian" -- father, husband, or son -- to work, travel, study, marry, or get access to healthcare, HRW said in the study, "Perpetual Minors: Human Rights Abuses Stemming from Male Guardianship and Sex Segregation in Saudi Arabia".

"The Saudi government sacrifices basic human rights to maintain male control over women," Farida Deif, Human Rights Watch women's rights researcher for the Middle East, said in a statement sent to Reuters.

"Saudi women won't make any progress until the government ends the abuses that stem from these misguided policies."

Since King Abdullah came to power in 2005, the government has said it supports a reform agenda but that it cannot enforce changes if significant sections of society continue to resist.

Clerics of the state-sanctioned brand of Sunni Islam, a strict form often termed Wahhabism, see the "muhrim", or guardian of women's honour, as central to the system of social and moral control in the country.

The rules -- the subject of heated national debate -- are enforced by the judiciary and a morals police body, both of which are run by Wahhabi clerics.

The government has allowed Human Rights Watch unprecedented access over the past two years, and more women have been able to enter the workforce. This year new regulations allowed women to stay in hotels without a guardian.

"The authorities essentially treat adult women like legal minors who are not entitled to authority over their lives and well-being," the HRW report says, citing a list of complaints based on interviews with about 100 women.

It says women cannot open bank accounts for children, enroll them in school, obtain school files, or travel with their children without written permission from the child's father.

Women are also prevented from accessing government agencies that have not established female sections unless they have a male representative, and the need to establish separate office space discourages firms from hiring women, it said.

"We know some customs and traditions prevent women having their complete rights, but you cannot say they are 'legal minors'," said the Saudi HRC's Harithi. "They are doctors, teach in universities, are elected to the chambers of commerce."

The report can be accessed at www.hrw.org.

Posted by Marisol at April 22, 2008 7:34 PM
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Comments
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Muslim men aren't all dumb, they figured out long ago, give Muslim women freedom and there wouldn't be enough to go around. The smart ones would be long gone.

Posted by: Joe Schmoe USA

at April 22, 2008 8:18 PM

I love the lines 'Saudi Arabia is one of the most conservative countries' and 'Saudi's system of male guardianship'.

This has nothing to do with Goverment it has to do with Religion. And as far as Saudi being 'conservative' try the words 'fanatical extremists'.

It is the Saudi's that are mass producing Wahabbism and everyone is ignoring the factory defects, and blaming it on 'user' error.

Posted by: alaskan1000

at April 22, 2008 8:23 PM

Muslim men discovered centuries ago when Europeans were traversing throughout the MIddleEast that Muslim women adored the blond haired blue eyed ones...

Posted by: pulsar182

at April 22, 2008 8:40 PM

treat adult women like legal minors

Interesting, in some ways, they also treat legal minors like adult women.

Posted by: Concerned Citizen

at April 22, 2008 8:59 PM

I'd say women should boycott something, but would anyone notice? Hard to boycott a society where you don't really exist.

Posted by: Jewel Atkins

at April 22, 2008 10:27 PM

Muslim men aren't all dumb, they figured out long ago, give Muslim women freedom and there wouldn't be enough to go around. The smart ones would be long gone.
Posted by: Joe Schmoe USA

And that must be why they don't let them drive.

They would be long gone, and so would the car.

Posted by: Dsinc

at April 22, 2008 10:49 PM

Stop this! You islamophobes!

isalm "elevates womens". The hijab and niqab "protects and liberates womens" from the men that blame them for their religiously sanctioned lack of self control.

http://www.hijabgirl.com/niqab.html

It's so sad I could cry. Why do any western women allow themselves to fall into the "Total Belief System" that is islam?

Where is that crazy woman from the University of Louisiana to explain this to me?

Posted by: praxis9

at April 22, 2008 10:50 PM

Dude! that's GROSS!

http://www.hijabgirl.com/niqab.html

Posted by: Ummah Gummah

at April 22, 2008 11:24 PM

pulsar182

There's a contemporary history of the Crusader kingdoms that speaks of the Crusaders marrying local women - not only girls from the local Christian community, but "Saracens who have received the grace of baptism".

Indeed, there is a charming - but, alas, entirely unsupported - legend that the famous martyr Thomas A Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury (d.1170) was the son of a Saracen woman:

"There is a story that Thomas' mother had been a Saracen princess who had met and fallen in love with his English father whilst he was on Crusade or pilgrimage in the Holy Land, followed him home, was baptised and then married him. This story has no truth in it, and its origin is unknown."

But that some actual women, when opportunity presented, did leave Islam, and embrace not only Christ but, in the mundane then and there, a Christian husband, is perfectly plausible.

I doubt it was the fascination of blond hair and blue eyes, but rather, something much more powerful...the wicked, secret fascination of...officially, legally recognised, religiously prescribed and blessed MONOGAMY.

A 'Saracen' girl who shot through into 'christian' controlled territory, converted, and got herself a Frankish Christian husband (with a strong sword-arm well equipped to dispose of any of her family members bent on punishing her for her 'apostasy'), might possibly worry about him taking a mistress (11th and 12th century Frenchmen being not long removed from their wild tribal forefathers), but under Christian canon law would NEVER have to worry about him installing a rival wife right under her nose; nor would she have to fear "I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you".

Even today in the UK, think of the various Muslim girls who get into terrible trouble with their families, for taking non-Muslim boyfriends.

On Ali Sina's website where apostates tell their stories, one memorable story was told by a formerly-Muslim girl who had, over time, fallen head over heels in love with her...JEWISH!!! university tutor/ lecturer. One thing led to another; she met his family; somewhere along the way her residual Islamically-inculcated antisemitism simply evaporated in the fires of passion, and in the end, she converted to Judaism and married him.

We can't do much for Saudi women, specially with our Infidel governments so clueless.

But we can push like mad to try to urge our governments to protect, in non-Muslim countries, not only those who genuinely apostasise from Islam, but that special sub-group of apostates which comprises Muslim-background women who want not only to convert out but to marry out.

Because if they knew it was safe to do so - not only drop Islam but, in so doing, marry a nice non-Muslim man whose religious books DON'T tell him to beat her, and whose civil and/or religious law FORBIDS him to take any extra wives - I'd say there would be quite a lot of muslimahs defecting to the Infidels.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy

at April 23, 2008 3:02 AM

Equal rights for women means that Islam dies. The women will then be able to stop teaching the hatred, or having it taught, to their children and the cycle of violence will be broken. That's why the men will fight to keep it from happening.

Posted by: George Mc.

at April 23, 2008 8:38 AM

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