{"id":8108,"date":"2014-03-03T11:32:37","date_gmt":"2014-03-03T11:32:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/?p=8108"},"modified":"2014-03-03T11:33:45","modified_gmt":"2014-03-03T11:33:45","slug":"saudi-women-demand-end-to-absolute-male-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/saudi-women-demand-end-to-absolute-male-control\/","title":{"rendered":"Saudi women demand end to ‘absolute male control’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saudi Arabia is also the only country in the world that bans women from driving [Reuters]<\/em><\/p>\n

Saudi women activists have presented a memorandum to the Shoura Council seeking its support to curb the \u201cabsolute authority\u201d of male guardians over women in the Kingdom, a signatory said.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Activist Aziza Yousef told AFP that rights activists have presented their petition to the consultative body on the occasion of the International Women\u2019s Day, which falls on March 8.<\/p>\n

They have demanded \u201cmeasures to protect (women\u2019s) rights,\u201d in their petition to the Council, she said.<\/p>\n

Laws in the Kingdom enforcing such restrictions on women \u201care not based on religious\u201d teachings, said Yousef.<\/p>\n

The petition, signed by 10 female activists, also calls for allowing women to drive. Women in the Kingdom must obtain permission from a male guardian to perform \u201ccertain surgeries\u201d and to \u201cleave the university campus during study hours,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

She cited a recent case in which a pregnant student had to give birth on campus after a women-only university in Riyadh denied access to paramedics.<\/p>\n

And a university student died in February after paramedics were prevented from entering her campus because they were not accompanied by male guardians.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia suspended a SMS notification program that had been running since 2012, which alerted men once their female relatives left the country, even if they were travelling together.<\/p>\n

In October, three female Shoura members presented a recommendation that women be given the right to drive, but the male-dominated 150-member assembly blocked the proposal.<\/p>\n

The Shura Council is appointed by the king and advises the monarch on policy, but cannot legislate.<\/p>\n

Source – Arab News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saudi Arabia is also the only country in the world that bans women from driving [Reuters] Saudi women activists have presented a memorandum to the Shoura Council seeking its support to curb the \u201cabsolute authority\u201d of male guardians over women in the Kingdom, a signatory said. Activist Aziza Yousef told AFP that rights activists have …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8109,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,2],"tags":[245,246,163,247,244],"class_list":["post-8108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-miscellaneous","category-news-and-analysis","tag-driving","tag-shura-council","tag-ticker","tag-women-activists","tag-womens-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8108"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8111,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8108\/revisions\/8111"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wilayah.info\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}