Riyadh – Saudi women are prevented by male guardians from enjoying their basic rights, including travelling, working and getting married, the Human Rights Watch group said Monday.
“Saudi women often must obtain permission from a guardian (a father, husband, or even a son) to work, travel, study, marry or even access health care,” the New York-based group said.
A report, entitled Perpetual Minors: Human Rights Abuses Stemming from Male Guardianship and Sex Segregation in Saudi Arabia, draws on over 100 interviews with Saudi women to document the effect of discriminatory policies on women’s basic rights.
“The authorities essentially treat adult women like legal minors who are not entitled to authority over their lives and well-being,” the 50-page report said.
Saudi women are denied the right to access government agencies that have no female sections unless they have a male representative.
“The need to establish separate office spaces for women is a disincentive to hiring female employees, and female students are often relegated to unequal facilities with unequal academic opportunities,” the human rights group said.
In cases where permission of a male guardian is not required, government officials often ask for it.
Airport officials, for example, ask women over 45 for written permission from their guardians allowing them to travel despite a recent government’s exemption from this requirement.
A 40-year-old Saudi woman, whose name was given as Fatma A., told the group that she cannot board a plane without written permission from her son, who is her legal guardian.
“My son is 23 years old and has to come all the way from the Eastern Province to give me permission to leave the country,” Fatma said.
Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that enforces a ban on women’s driving.
Women in the conservative kingdom have severely restricted access to justice and have difficulty filing a court case or testifying in court without a legal guardian.
Paradoxically, Saudi women have only limited rights to make decision for themselves but are held criminally “responsible for their actions at puberty,” the report said.
“For Saudi women, reaching adulthood brings no rights, only responsibilities,” said Farida Deif, women’s rights researcher for the Middle East at Human Rights Watch. (dpa)
The Iranian authorities are continuing to harass activists working to defend women’s rights. Ronak Safarzadeh and Hana Abdi – two Kurdish Iranian activists – currently remain detained without charge or trial. They were arrested in October and November 2007 for peacefully exercising their rights.
The two activists were working as part of The Campaign for Equality, an Iranian women’s rights initiative. Launched in 2006, the campaign aims to collect one million signatures of Iranian nationals to a petition demanding an end to legal discrimination against women in Iran. The group also provides legal training to volunteers – both women and men – who then travel across the country to promote the campaign, and talk to women about their rights and the need for legal reform.
Women in Iran face far-reaching discrimination under the law. They are denied equal rights in marriage, divorce, child custody and inheritance. Evidence given by a woman in court is considered only worth half that given by a man. A girl under the age of 13 can be forced to marry a much older man if her father permits it.
With the increase in women’s literacy in the last 30 years and the large number of women students at university, women are increasingly empowered to challenge discrimination. But their efforts are viewed with suspicion by the authorities, who have launched a campaign of intimidation and repression against them. Thecampaign’s website has been blocked at least seven times by the authorities and its activists are being targeted because of their work.
In August 2007, Nasim Sarabandi and Fatemeh Dehdashti were the first women among the campaign’s activists to receive prison sentences. Detained for 24 hours in January 2007 while collecting signatures in Tehran, they were later sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, after being charged with “acting against state security by propaganda against the system”.
Over 40 others have been detained in connection with their campaigning activities, including Reza Dowlatshah. He was hosting an educational workshop for the campaign in September 2007, when he was detained for three days and beaten.
Although the obstacles are many, activists are still willing to risk their safety to bring about a fundamental change in how the Iranian authorities treat Iran’s women. As Shadi Sadr, a lawyer currently facing possible imprisonment for her human rights work, says: “My grandmother wasn’t allowed the life she wanted. I was lucky. I achieved everything but the struggle was still hard. I didn’t want the dearest person in my life [my daughter] to have the same troubles.”
These sentiments are echoed by former Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi, “We are a nation bursting with female ability. We are a country blessed with hard-working women desperate to make a contribution, but one hobbled by legalised prejudice and social bigotry. Now more than ever, the women of Iran deserve our support”.
Rather than using its power to repress and intimidate those who protest and demand their rights, Iran’s government should see the work of women’s rights activists and human rights defenders as an asset, and recognize the important contribution that such activists and defenders are making to address discrimination and intolerance and to promote universal human rights for all Iranians.
Amnesty International has called on the government of Iran must take urgent steps to:
- dismantle discriminatory legislation
- release imprisoned women’s rights defenders and stop detaining and harassing those peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly.
No comments:
Post a Comment