RIYADH - In Riyadh, the college day begins for female students behind a locked door that will remain that way until male guardians collect them.
Later, in a female-run business, everyone must vacate the premises so a delivery man can drop off a package.
In Jeddah, a 40-year-old
divorced woman cannot board a plane without the written permission of her 23-year-old son.
This is the daily reality for women in the Saudi kingdom, the one country where they legally belong to men.
The New York-based group Human Rights Watch has finally been granted access to Saudi Arabia, where it reported on women forced to live as children, denied basic rights and confined to dependency on men.
Wajeha al-Huwaider, a critic of Saudi's guardian laws that force women to seek male permission for almost all aspects of their lives, part of a growing number demanding change.
"Sometimes I feel like I can't do anything; I am utterly reliant on other people, completely dependent. If you are dependent on another person, you've got nothing. That is how the men like it. They don't want us to be equals."
The House of Saud, in alliance with an extremist religious establishment, has created a legal system that treats women as minors unable to exercise authority over even trivial matters.
The most egregious consequences of this repressive regime occasionally filter out from the Gulf Kingdom: the notorious case of the girl who was jailed after being gang raped, the schoolgirls believed to have burnt to death in Mecca as religious police would not let them leave the fiery premises without headscarves.
Beyond these cases is a demoralising reality in which women cannot open bank accounts, take children to the dentist or on a field trip without the written permission of the father.
Petty humiliations are endemic. Two women said judges had refused them the right to speak in court as their voices were "shameful" - only their guardians were allowed to speak on their behalf.
- INDEPENDENT
