RIYADH, 19 April 2005 — Women are furious because of an alleged move by the Saudi Telecom Company to lower the mobile phone account limit to SR1,000 for female customers.
“Do we have a choice? I do not want to think of the silly reasons behind STC’s rumored decision. Nothing is fair these days,” Sara Sendi, an employee at King Faisal Specialist Hospital, stated with rage.
Arwa Al-Dakheel, a mother of three, considered it as discrimination against women. “Why do we always have to apply different laws for women? According to our Islamic religion we are supposed to be treated as equals.”
Mona Ahmad, a government employee, explained that the STC should take into account that there are also men who are unable to pay their mobile bills. They must ask for salary statements from both men and women, not just women.
Monsour Al-Bakr, a bank employee, said: “The STC has the right to apply this decision. However, they should be consistent and fair and apply to both male and female customers. The truth of the matter is that the highest rate of unemployed women in the world is here in Saudi Arabia. Maybe that is why the company came up with this idea to ensure that its revenues are secured.”
Majed Mohammad, an administrator in the private sector, questioned the basis of the alleged decision. “It is important for the STC to present statistics and proof before coming up with such a decision which discriminates against women. I think this system is useful to those who have difficulty paying their mobile bills.”
Saad Al-Qahtani, a media affairs manager at the STC, refuted the claims. He said that all that has been rumored about the so-called decision lowering account limits for women” is far from the truth. No decision has been made with regard to this, he added.
“The ability to pay the mobile bill varies from man to man and woman to woman. Therefore, a system was developed to categorize customers into various groups. We have customers who are on the blacklist — those who are not entitled to our services because they failed to pay bills in the past. Some blacklisted men customers apply for mobile numbers in women’s names. Then we have customers, both men and women, who face difficulty paying their bills on time. Therefore, a limit is set to avoid adding them to the blacklist in the future. It is in the company’s interest to set guidelines for dealing with its customers.”
He stated that some women have account limit reaching SR10,000 whereas that of some men is only SR300, depending on the extent of their use. “We are not biased. We treat women the same way as men. We ask them both for salary statements if they ask to increase their account limit,” he added.
