Saudi women are being denied basic human rights under the kingdom’s male guardianship and strict gender segregation policies, Human Rights Watch said in a report on Monday.
The US-based group called on the government to dismantle the “grossly discriminatory” guardianship system and drastically expand the facilities available for women to allow them equal access to public services.
Human Rights Watch said more than 100 women were interviewed for the report, ‘Perpetual Minors: Human Rights Abuses Stemming from Male Guardianship and Sex Segregation in Saudi Arabia’.
Under Saudi law women are not allowed to be alone in the company of a male guardian, which can either be a father, husband, brother or son. Restaurants, cafes, shops and offices are all required to have separate areas for men and women.
Under law women are also not permitted to work, travel, study or marry, and can be denied access to health, judicial and other public services without first obtaining permission from a male guardian.
Human Rights Watch said authorities treated adult women like “legal minors” and prevented them from having any control over their lives or well-being.
“The Saudi government sacrifices basic human rights to maintain male control over women,” Farida Deif, women’s rights researcher for the Middle East at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
“Saudi women won’t make any progress until the government ends the abuses that stem from these misguided policies.”
The group also said women were not seeing the benefit of limitations on the power of guardians recently imposed by the government.
It said authorities continued to deny women access to healthcare and women over 45 the right to travel without permission, despite national regulations to the contrary.
The criticism is just the latest attack on Saudi Arabia’s treatment of women by an international rights organisation.
A UN expert on women’s rights said in February she had heard accounts of serious discrimination against women and abuses by religious police during a visit to Saudi Arabia.
Yakin Erturk, the United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women said that while some Saudi women expressed satisfaction with their lives, “others have raised concerns of serious levels of discriminatory practices against women that compromise their rights and dignity as full human beings”.
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