Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

[24][25] According to the World Bank, Saudi Arabia has been making significant improvements to women's working conditions since 2017, addressing issues of mobility, sexual harassment, pensions, and workplace rights including employment discrimination protection.

For example, Sheikh Ahmed Qassim Al-Ghamdi, chief of the Mecca region's Islamic religious police, the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, also known as the mutaween, has said that Sharia does not prohibit ikhtilat (gender mixing).

[81] Enforcement of the Kingdom's strict moral code, including hijab and separation of the sexes, is often handled by the mutaween (also Hai'a)—a special committee of Saudi men sometimes called "religious police."

Until the Islamic revivalism, which occurred in Saudi Arabia after the Grand Mosque seizure in 1979, there were no legal requirement for women's veiling or seclusion in harem sex segregation.

"[91] In 2013, former lecturer Ahmed Abdel-Raheem polled female students at Al-Lith College for Girls at Umm al-Qura University in Mecca and found that 79% of the participants opposed lifting the driving ban for women.

[103] Some examples of that further highlight the ramifications of these restrictions include: Guardianship requirements are not written law, but instead are applied according to the customs and understanding of particular officials and institutions (hospitals, police stations, banks, etc.).

[121] On 31 August 2022, a viral online footage from an orphanage in Khamis Mushait showed Saudi security forces, including some wearing civilian clothes, chasing and attacking women with tasers, belts, and sticks.

[129] Some Saudi women say that the Absher app has made their lives easier as everything can be processed online, allowing, for instance, travel approval from a guardian in another city.

[134] Previously, the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, sometimes known as the religious police, has been known to patrol public places with volunteers focused on enforcing strict rules of hijab.

With the 2016 reforms of Mohammed bin Salman,[135][136] the power of the CPVPV was drastically reduced, and it was banned "from pursuing, questioning, asking for identification, arresting and detaining anyone suspected of a crime.

We are more than happy to establish collaboration with Hong Kong, which is known to be a technology and innovation hub in Asia.”[151] Several initiatives and programs have been launched in the country to promote and support entrepreneurship among young Saudi women.

Almost all of them had college and graduate degrees and were employed either in schools—where men were not permitted to teach girls—or in hospitals, because conservative families prefer that female doctors and nurses treat their wives, sisters, and daughters.

Author Geraldine Brooks again wrote, "Usually a guard was married to one of the women employees inside, so that if documents had to be delivered, he could deal with his wife rather than risking even the slight contact taking place between unmarried members of the opposite sex.

This move was met with opposition from within the ministry and from conservative Saudis,[156] who argued the presence of women outside the home encouraged ikhtilat (mixing of sexes) and that, according to their interpretation of Sharia, a woman's work outside the house is against her fitrah (natural state).

"[166] One such female professional is Dr. Selwa Al-Hazzaa, head of the ophthalmology department at King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh,[167] and in Lubna Olayan, named by Forbes and Time magazines as one of the Arab world's most influential businesswomen.

[172] A World Bank report found that, since 2017, Saudi Arabia has made "the biggest improvement globally" in issues of women's mobility, sexual harassment, retirement age and economic activity.

Sheikh Ahmed Qassim Al-Ghamdi, the controversial ex-chief of the Makkah region's mutaween, claimed that gender segregation has no basis in Sharia, or Islamic law, and that it has been incorrectly applied in the Saudi judicial system.

[199][200] On October 30, 2019, the promotion announced that Lacey Evans and Natalya would take part in the country's first professional wrestling match involving women at that year's edition of WWE Crown Jewel.

"[204] On September 29, 2020, Amnesty International raised concerns about the women's rights situation in Saudi Arabia, where a Ladies European Tour event was going to take place in November.

"[215] Human rights expert Philip Alston and the UN Working Group on discrimination of women encouraged the Saudi regime to demonstrate further reform by repealing other discriminatory laws.

[233] After being badly treated and facing more than a year's delay in the start of her legal process, she, along with other women's rights activists, attended a hearing with the Saudi court on 12 February 2020.

In 2006, U.S. ambassador John Miller, Director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, said the forced labor of foreign female domestic workers was the most common kind of slavery in Saudi Arabia.

"[86] Local and international women's groups have pushed Saudi governments for reform, taking advantage of the fact that some rulers are eager to project a more progressive image to the West.

She used the occasion to advocate for economic equality:[303] My vision is of a country with a prosperous and diversified economy in which any Saudi citizen, irrespective of gender, who is serious about finding employment, can find a job in the field for which he or she is best qualified, leading to a thriving middle class and in which all Saudi citizens, residents or visitors to the country feel safe and can live in an atmosphere where mutual respect and tolerance exist among all, regardless of their social class, religion or gender.Both Forbes and Time magazines have named Lubna Olayan one of the world's most influential women.

[168] The Grand Mufti, Abdul-Azeez ibn Abdullaah Aal ash-Sheikh, on the other hand, condemned the event, saying that "Allowing women to mix with men is the root of every evil and catastrophe...

[142] Journalist Sabria Jawhar dismisses Huwaider as a show-off: "The problem with some Saudi activists is that they want to make wholesale changes that are contrary to Islam, which requires a mahram for traveling women.

[309] Yasminah Elsaadany, a non-Saudi woman who held several managerial positions in multinational organisations in the pharmaceutical industry from 2011 to 2014, contacted the Saudi Labor Minister, Adel Fakeih, and his consultants from 2010 to 2013.

His conviction and sentencing will illustrate to women that their concerns are being heard, while also showing men that the government is serious about clamping down on such behavior [321] Gender segregation has produced great enthusiasm for innovative communications technology, especially when it is anonymous.

We can protest on Facebook about the jailing of a blogger which is something we couldn't do on the streets.A Saudi internet radio station that promotes women's rights from abroad announced via Twitter that it would broadcast on a weekly basis.

The state will aspire to strengthen family ties, maintain its Arab and Islamic values and care for all its members, and to provide the right conditions for the growth of their resources and capabilities.