Saudi Gazette has several brief articles addressing Saudi employment. One notes that Saudis now make up a sufficient percentage of flour mills in Hail to reach its Saudization goal. Another notes that the government has permitted some 40 companies in the Eastern Province to hire women in meat factories, marine companies and general contracting firms. The last is about how the Ministry of Commerce & Industry is permitting women to take jobs as expediters (i.e., managing paperwork flow) in government agencies that have women’s branches. It is also encouraging women’s entrepreneurship by lowering the barriers to women’s starting up their own businesses.
Good moves all around!
Saudization at new flour mills in Hail lauded
Back in the early 1960s, when I was getting my first experience living outside the US, US Information Agency Director Edward R. Murrow, gave a speech in which he said, “The really crucial link in the international communication chain is the last three feet, which is bridged by personal contact, one person talking to another.” That, in a nutshell, is the role of Public Diplomacy.
Arab News reports on an effort exemplifying that thought, undertaken by Saud students at Indiana University in Bloomington. Faced with stereotypes of Saudi Arabia and Saudis in general, they have worked to show that most Saudis do not fit the stereotype:
Dispelling stereotypes
Laura Bashraheel | Arab NewsWhile Saudi university students in the United States are concerned about Saudi Arabia’s image abroad, efforts to change negative and false stereotypes are being put together by a group of Saudi students at the Indiana University World Fair 2008.
The fair is an international event held annually at the state university with the participation of more than 22 international organizations on campus, presenting their cultures, traditions and cuisines.
Loay Al-Alfi, Osamah Feda and Heba Al-Khateeb, three of the 19 Saudi men and women who organized the event, said this was a good opportunity for them to represent Saudi Arabia’s people and culture.
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As noted in a post below, Saudi Arabia has a complicated—and generally messed up—employment situation. Millions of foreign workers are imported to do work. At the same time, millions of Saudis are unemployed.
A lot of the problem comes from the fact that Saudis are not interested in doing certain kinds of work, e.g. most manual labor. They see it as ‘beneath’ their dignity, an attitude that is cyclically encouraged by the fact that they import poor, poorly educated, and poorly globally socialized workers from underdeveloped countries. There are further barriers thrown up by a society that makes judgments for its members, exemplified in the protests raised when some Saudi women said they were willing to take jobs as maids and domestic workers. ‘Not our sisters!’ came the call.
But even as the government tries to implement ‘Saudization’—the replacement of foreign workers by Saudi workers—the government also impedes Saudis looking for work. This article from Saudi Gazette reports on how the Riyadh Labor Office is failing in its task.
Slow, long waits grind Riyadh Labor Office
Majed Al-MaimouniRIYADH – As the world rapidly moves into virtual offices to process workflow for greater efficiency, hundreds of people line up under unpredictable weather conditions as early as 2 A.M. at the Riyadh Labor Office to be closer to the window clerk five hours later. Throughout the night, people have been seen waiting on dark wisdom of the labor office.
Whether waiting to process a job application or a labor dispute, the operational aspect of workflow is: agony.
Riyadh Labor Office is perhaps special in its never-ending bureaucracy in processing paperwork transactions, a problem that has plagued most government offices, said Mufleh Al-Qahtani, spokesman of National Human Rights Commission.
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Marriages between Saudi men and non-Saudi women is an issue that has Saudi society in turmoil. This piece from Saudi Gazette reports on how many Saudis see these international marriages as destructive to Saudi society and culture. The article doesn’t do a particularly deep study of just why Saudi men look for foreign wives, though, focusing primarily on the marriages of older Saudi men looking to escape their own domestic problems. I think there are at least several PhD theses to be written on the subject, so it’s not surprising that a newspaper article doesn’t quite manage the topic.
Many Saudis marry abroad to escape ‘bossy’ wives at home
Zein ‘AnbarJEDDAH – The Shoura Council’s recommendation to oblige Saudi men married to foreign women to assume responsibilities for their dependents and offspring has met with opposition from those who would like to see greater restrictions on marriages between nationalities.
The Shoura Council recommended that in cases where the Saudi husband and father cannot provide for his dependents, they be referred to the Charitable Society for the Care of Saudi Families Abroad.
Some Saudis would like to see the practice of marriage to foreign women banned altogether. They point to increasing rates of spinsterhood as one of its detrimental effects on society at large, and the fact that it takes up extra funds while the Saudi wife and children at home are neglected.
Amal Abdullah says many homes experience fragile stability after a man marries a foreign woman. She describes the motives as due to “elderly adolescence” and says that the existence of a foreign wife and children creates a rift in relations between the father and his children.
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The Washington Post carries this Associate Press piece commemorating the demonstration that occurred 18 years ago when a group of Saudi women took to the streets of Riyadh, behind the wheel. The event is celebrated by the participants who gather annually to discuss the gains and/or losses women’s rights have seen in the Kingdom. Some women regret having taken part in the demonstrations while others are proud of it and wish it could be repeated with a new generation.
Stunning Saudi car ride celebrated 18 years later
Donna Abu-NasrRIYADH, Saudi Arabia — In an ornate living room, a group of women gathered around coffee and date cakes to celebrate the afternoon 18 years ago when they got into cars and drove the streets of Riyadh, a stunning defiance of Saudi Arabia’s ban on female driving.
They have only one regret: The ban remains.
The protest, which made headlines around the world, cost the 47 female drivers and passengers dearly. They were arrested, lost their jobs for 2 1/2 years, were banned from travel for a year and were condemned by the powerful clergy as harlots. To this day, some say they have not been promoted at work because of their protest.
On Wednesday night, however, the living room was alive with laughter as a dozen of the women recalled the joy they felt that day, Nov. 6, 1990, and the giggles that filled their small prison cell as they munched on the Hershey kisses one of them had in her bag.
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Arab News reports, with some disgust, that school authorities in the southern province of Asir, are now requiring young pre-pubescent girls to wear abayas and veils to school. This is a severely retrograde act and not utterly in compliance with Islamic law which requires only ‘modesty’ of women after the age of puberty. Parents are distressed; psychologists discuss the potential harm in such regulations; school authorities say, ‘It’s good preparation’. This is insane.
It’s also an example of the difficulties King Abdullah faces in trying to get Saudis to become realistic and tolerance in their religious observance.
Asir parents in a quandary over ‘full abaya’ for schoolchildren
Hayat Al-Ghamdi | Arab NewsKHAMIS MUSHAYT: When an eight- or ten-year-old girl is told that she should cover her entire body from head to toe — as an adult woman is supposed to do — then immediately the child’s mother asks why.
This is exactly what is happening in the southern province of Asir where school regulations stipulate that pre-pubescent girls should dress in such a way that no part of their body, including head and face, is visible.
A child who dares to violate the new dress code faces severe punishment, including a public scolding and deductions from her marks.
This has put parents in a real dilemma. On the one hand, this new dress code is being imposed; on the other, they find it difficult to convince their young daughters that it is necessary for them to be completely veiled.
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Sabria Jawhar, of Sabria’s Out of the Box blog has a good column in today’s Saudi Gazette where she takes on the Shoura Council’s decision to leave Saudi marriage laws unchanged.
She is not happy with the decision and points to how Saudi women are deemed competent in many professions, but still seem to need the guidance of government in choosing a spouse. She does note that Saudi society is behind the reticence in permitting Saudi women to marry non-Saudi men, but that the government provides its own roadblocks. Changing social attitudes is, of course, the hard part. If more Saudis were comfortable with the idea, then government policy would follow. But as it stands now, for most Saudis it’s a matter of ‘but I wouldn’t let my daughter marry one of the them!’
The marriage question
Sabria S. JawharTHE Shoura Council this week has decided it is not time to simplify marriage laws concerning Saudis marrying foreigners. By streamlining the law things could become more complicated according to the logic of some lawmakers.
But leaving the law the way it is will only continue the heavy burden — especially for women — that Saudis carry if they want to marry a foreigner.
There are hundreds of examples of Saudi women in high-level jobs in Saudi Arabia and around the world. These women work in the Ministry of Education or other government jobs or are poets, writers, journalists, film directors, pilots and even race car drivers. But the Shoura Council apparently believes that they are not competent to choose a husband.
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Saudi Gazette reports that women living in the new dorms at King Saud University in Riyadh are unhappy that they’re being treated like children.
Female students upset at breach of their ‘privacy’
Tufail Al-YusufDAMMAM – Students at the new female dormitory of King Saud University in Riyadh have voiced their resentment at what they describe as an “invasion of privacy” by university supervisors.
Women students returning to their lodgings from lectures reportedly find that university wardens have unlocked their rooms and gone through their personal belongings, and claim that supervisors “treat them like teenagers” and confiscate their personal effects to deliberately upset them.
Complaints also concern the quality of food served at the residence, leading many to live on instant soup and beverages.
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The Saudi Shoura Council voted down a proposal to simplify regulations concerning the marriage of Saudis to non-Saudis, reports Arab News. The reasonings seems to be that if it becomes too easy for Saudi men to marry foreigners, Saudi women will be left unmarried. No mention of the effect on Saudi women who might wish to marry foreigners…
Some positive steps to protect the foreign families of Saudis abroad seem to have come from the Council’s session, though, as the story points out.
Shoura rejects proposal to ease Saudi marriages to foreigners
RIYADH: The Shoura Council yesterday rejected a recommendation to simplify regulations governing Saudis marrying non-Saudis. However, a council session, chaired by its new Vice President Bandar Al-Hajjar, approved other recommendations submitted by Talal Al-Bakri, chairman of the council’s Committee for Social, Family and Youth Affairs.
Hajjar rejected the proposal as the council’s 108 members were equally split over a need to simplify the regulations.
… Other recommendations endorsed by the council included social insurance coverage for children of Saudi men living abroad, and the need for Saudi fathers to arrange citizenship for children born to foreign wives and for Saudis who are not in a position to support their children to approach charities that take care of Saudi families abroad.
While anything that fosters safer driving on the roads of Saudi Arabia is welcomed, this Saudi Gazette story is a bit of an eye-popper. Of the 500 Saudis signing up for a defensive driving course, 200 of them are women. Women, of course, can’t drive (yet) in Saudi Arabia. This suggests that either they are getting ready to be granted permission to drive or there’s going to be a tremendous increase in backseat driving in the Kingdom!
Defensive driving starts up in Jeddah
Mohammed Al-Kinani Saudi GazetteJEDDAH – A surprisingly large turnout of women marked the launch here Sunday of the Arab world’s first academy for defensive driving.
Women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia but their huge participation in the launch of Safra Defensive Driving Academy (SDDA) at Jeddah Raceway here suggests that Saudi society is closing ranks to assume collective social responsibility for reducing the Kingdom’s high road-death and injury rates, considered among the highest in the world.“Our interest in the event is because the men in our family drive,” said one woman who asked not to be identified. “Besides, we are driven around by men.”
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Islamic law requires that daughters receive a share of their father’s estate upon his death. That share is not the equal of their brother’s share, but it is a share. Tribal culture in Saudi Arabia’s southern Asir Province, however, has a different custom: women don’t inherit. This is clearly a conflict between Islamic law and tribal law and it’s making the news.
Arab News carries this report on how women in the Asir are starting to assert their Islamic rights in the face of social blackmail.
Depriving women of inheritance rights
ABHA: A peculiar tribal practice in the southern province deprives women of their right to inherit shares in their fathers’ property. The reason given for this practice prevalent among certain tribes is to prevent the women’s husbands and kids from getting shares in the tribe’s wealth.
Only ten percent of women from these tribes ask for their share in inheritance while 90 percent do not dare break the longstanding taboo, according to a report in Al-Watan.
Mothers and grandmothers play the main role in convincing young women to forgo their shares in inheritance. They hold a big dinner party for neighbors and friends to celebrate the event. They also place two white flags in front of the house as a sign of pride that their women had given up their shares in favor of their brothers.
Some people in Asir province even say they don’t acknowledge women’s right of inheritance.
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Arab News reports on another case of child marriage that is hitting the Saudi courts. There has been a spate of media reports on the issue, the story acknowledges, which makes it difficult to know whether this represents an increase in the problem or simply an increase in the reporting.
This particular case is going to be interesting in that it differs from earlier cases due to the age of the girl. Earlier cases involved eight- and ten-year-old girls; this one involves a 12-year-old. Now, 12 is still considered a child in the West, but it is not quite so in the traditional Muslim world. Under Islamic law, puberty is pretty much the defining line. This case may result in the drawing of a brighter line concerning age of marriage, though, as some sectors of Saudi society seeks to bring local laws in line with international norms.
Nevertheless, this case also involves the matter of a girl’s consent to a marriage, something the mother alleges never happened. That is likely to be the point on which the court will rule. Any result that serves to clarify age limits will be supplemental.
Jizan man marries off daughter in mother’s custody
Laura Bashraheel | Arab NewsJEDDAH: A Saudi mother filed a complaint with the Jizan police against her ex-husband for marrying off their 12-year-old daughter without the mother’s knowledge.
The woman who has the custody of her daughter claims that her child is too young to get married and the father did not inform her of his plans to marry the girl.
Maj. Ahmed Al-Wada’ani, official spokesman for Jizan police, told Arab News that after the woman filed the complaint police brought in the girl’s father for questioning.
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