Sex segregation in Saudi Arabia

However, since Mohammed bin Salman was appointed Crown Prince in 2017, a series of social reforms have been witnessed that created cultural changes, which included putting an end to the sex (gender) segregation enforcement.

[4] Anyone who is seen socializing with someone of the opposite sex who is not a relative, can be harassed by the mutaween (in Arabic: مطوعون), even charged with committing adultery, fornication or prostitution.

Traditional house designs also use high walls, compartmentalized inner rooms, and curtains to protect the family and particularly women from the public.

In restaurants, banks and other public places in Saudi Arabia, men and women are required to enter and exit through separate doors.

[9] Since the public sphere of life is the domain of men, women are expected to be veiled outside the secluded areas of their homes.

Public places such as beaches and amusement parks are also segregated, sometimes by time, so that boys and men, and girls and women attend at different hours.

McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, and other US firms, for instance, maintain segregated eating zones in their restaurants.

[11][12][verification needed] Men and women may, sometimes, mix in restaurants of Western luxury hotels that cater primarily to noncitizens.

Restaurants typically bars have an entrance for women who come without their husbands or mahram [casually their brothers], although if they are allowed in, they will be guided to the family section.

The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, which opened in September 2009, is a coeducational campus where men and women study alongside each other.

The public views the 1.6 meter wall favorably, saying that it will lead to less instances of harassment by men visiting the expatriate women in the shops.

However, on 8 December 2019, a new rule was announced to reduce gender segregation in restaurants and cafes as they will no longer be required to have separate areas for families and bachelors.

[29] This obligation to hide the female form from men who are not family, so perplexing and unsettling to outsiders, can be complicated for Saudis too.

In 2008 Khamisa Mohammad Sawadi, a 75-year-old woman, was sentenced to 40 lashes and imprisonment for allowing a man to deliver bread to her directly in her home, and then, as she was a non-citizen, was deported.

[13][31] In 2010, a clerical adviser to the Royal court and Ministry of Justice issued a fatwa suggesting that women should provide breast milk to their employed drivers thereby making them relatives (a concept known as Rada).