JEDDAH, 27 February 2005 — In a significant first, the Saudi Arabian Foreign Ministry will appoint 36 Saudi women to a variety of jobs in the political, economic, women’s rights and computer departments, press reports said yesterday.
“The appointments will occur within three weeks,” said Prince Khaled ibn Saud, director of the department for financial and administrative affairs. He said a large number of women had already applied for the jobs.
Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal revealed last week plans to hire women as part of the country’s political reforms. The minister added that some women would be appointed to key posts.
Prince Saud said the role of Saudi women was changing rapidly. “Our educational reforms have created a new generation of highly educated and professionally trained Saudi women who are acquiring their rightful position in Saudi society,” he told a Saudi-British conference in London on Wednesday.
“I am proud to say here that this year we will have women working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the first time,” Prince Saud said in his keynote address to the conference entitled, “Two Kingdoms: Facing the Challenges Ahead.”
According to a report in Okaz Arabic daily, the Foreign Ministry is now in the process of developing its women’s section. The move comes in the wake of a Cabinet decision last year instructing all government departments to open sections for women.
The government has speeded up efforts to eradicate unemployment which is high among women. According to Nahed Taher, a senior economist at National Commercial Bank, 55 percent of the Kingdom’s university graduates are females and the overwhelming majority remain at home.
Labor Minister Ghazi Al-Gosaibi announced Friday that his ministry would launch a campaign to register female jobseekers soon after the opening of women’s sections at its branch offices. He has promised to increase job opportunities for women in the private sector.
Many young women, whose jobs were earlier restricted to the education and health sectors, have taken up jobs as medical transcriptionists, executive secretaries and receptionists.
Many Saudi women, who were previously working abroad, have returned to the Kingdom after seeing the opportunities available to them.
Dr. Salwa Al-Hazza, formerly at Johns Hopkins University in the United States, is now head of the Ophthalmology Department at King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh.
“I feel comfortable here even though I spent several years in the United States. Women have a special position in the Kingdom,” Dr. Salwa said.
“We have begun experiencing changes for the better,” she added.
