The conference is expected to give a great boost to Saudi women

By Abdul Raheem Ali, IOL Staff

CAIRO, June 14 (IslamOnline.net) – A three-day conference, to be wrapped up in Riyadh Monday, June 14, adopted some historic recommendations for establishing family courts in the Saudi Kingdom in which women could sit in as judges.

The participants of the conference – the third in a series of forums initiated by Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdel-Aziz – urged a number of steps also for developing the country's judiciary to do justice to women.

"This is an unprecedented step on the history of women here," Amgad Reda, one of the female participants, told IslamOnline.net, Sunday, June 13.

Reda said the conference also adopted another recommendation; that Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) rules on women "shall be legally standardized, to avoid leaving things up to judge's own vision".

Most of the female participants approved a study by Dr. Youssef Al-Jabr, titled "developing the Saudi justice system, and its influence on being just with women to establish their rights".

Breaking Taboos

The forum's recommendations are nonbinding, but the "fact that the conference discussed such issues – which had been earlier deemed taboos – is an unprecedented step," said Reda.

"Women could not get all of their rights via the conference, of course. But we managed at least to put our causes on the table clearly and set out our demands openly," she added.

According to a survey of 150 women printed in Al-Madina newspaper, women complained about the lack of a judicial entity to help them learn about and apply their rights, unemployment, the inability to travel and represent themselves in court and other official offices without a male guardian, and a lack of recourse in case of violence against them.

Work & Education

The forum handled two hot topics, education and working women.

"Syllabuses' position over women", "curricula meeting no coveted targets", "establishing girls' rights to education" and "variation and sufficiency of education specialties", read the titles of papers presented in this regard.

The participants discussed other papers, on work fields suitable to women and control over them.

While just as many females graduate from college as men, they have limited job opportunities, and make up to just 5 percent of the private work force. Most women work as teachers but there are a growing number of doctors, journalists, and television presenters.

The recommendations will be referred to the crown prince for approval.

The opening of the conference Saturday, June 12, witnessed a debate on the causes that led Saudi society to prevent women from their rights.

But most participants reached a consensus on rejecting the western concept of women rights, sources close to the deliberations told IOL.

More Freedom

The conference came as press reports say Saudi women are getting more freedoms in a society long labeled male-dominated.

In the past year, some of those taboos have been lifted, at least temporarily, said The Christian Science Monitor Monday.

In fact, when the first government-sponsored conference on women's issues was announced early this year, there was a spontaneous and unprecedented outpouring of public support, said the American daily.

Earlier this month the Council of Ministers - the most powerful government body - issued a nine-point plan urging the creation of more job opportunities for women.

Groups of women, individuals, and members of charitable and cultural societies from across the country flooded the council's offices with working papers, surveys, suggestions, and demands.

"The announcement made women act on a need that has been building up for years," Fatima Naseef, an Islamic scholar and university lecturer, was quoted by the Monitor as saying.

Naseef got together with 32 women from different parts of Saudi Arabia and put together a seven-page document of their requests, including a safe house for battered spouses and a female-staffed office to advise women on their rights under Islamic law concerning divorce, child custody, support and alimony.

Optimistic

Spurred by the current conference, the paper said, women's issues have been given unprecedented attention on Saudi television programs, radio shows, newspapers, and private meetings in recent weeks.

Saudis have seen debates on the pros and cons of women driving, how the court system and divorce laws are skewed in favor of men, the high unemployment women suffer, and whether desegregated workplaces violate Islamic law.

Saudi authorities have just approved the establishment of an all-women industrial city that will host training centers and employ approximately 10,000 women at more than 80 factories, the city's main investor announced Saturday.

Hessa Aloun, who runs an investment company and is also a member of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce, told the Associated Press that two companies, one Chinese and one Malaysian, have already signed agreements to start training programs in early 2005.

"We have a large women cadre that wants to work in the industrial field, but without proper training this is not possible," Aloun said.

The American paper said the problem is not only minimal work opportunities, but also logistics, argue women. Saudi women are not allowed to drive cars, and cannot travel, marry, or get identification papers without the permission of a male guardian, it added.

"This extreme dependence on a male guardian is a handicap," Johara al-Angary, head of the family section of the newly formed Human Rights Commission, told the Monitor. 

"The women who most need work are often those who don't have a husband or male children, and there are many of them," said Angary, working with charity organizations for more than 20 years.

Putting up optimistic, Angary said that change is coming. 

"For the first time I feel really optimistic. I think now's our time. Rights are not given, they're taken. And we're at a turning point. This is our moment. We need to seize it now. Otherwise future generations will never forgive us." 

Noticeably, Saudi women were allowed to participate in earlier national dialogue sessions, for the first time ever, in December.