RIYADH: Manal Al-Quais, a 23-year-old Saudi, won a scholarship from the King Abdullah Scholarship Program to study nursing in Canada. There’s only one problem: She can’t find a close male relative to go with her for the entire duration of the study; they have their own families and responsibilities to attend to.
Recently, two key governmental departments have initiated a debate on how women in Manal’s situation can take advantage of Saudi Arabia’s national scholarship program.
The Higher Education Ministry will not lift the requirement that these students bring a guardian (a close male relative or husband) in order to study abroad, while the governmental Human Rights Commission (HRC) disagrees on the importance of the “mahram” accompanying the students.
“This would help hundreds of women who don’t have male guardians available or ready to go with them to pursue higher education outside,” said HRC spokesman Zuhair Al-Harithy.
In a recommendation sent to the Council of Ministers, the HRC argues that the permission of a guardian should suffice, just as it is done for allowing women to travel unaccompanied.
But for the time being, Higher Education Ministry will stick to the existing policy. Saudi women who go abroad to study at their own expense are exempt from this requirement.
“Any woman student whose guardian leaves the country where she studies will immediately lose financial support,” said Abdullah Al-Moussa, general supervisor of scholarships at the Ministry of Higher Education.
Some guardians prefer to accompany their relatives for a couple of months and return to work and family. And some Saudi women, like Maram, who in her late teens dreams of going to college abroad to study events management, simply do not have any close male relatives.
“The rule expects that every house has a man,” Maram told Arab News, adding that the rules don’t allow her mother to accompany her.
The way the government ensures that Saudi women receiving these scholarships follow the requirements is simple: They don’t give the allowance money to the woman, but rather directly to the guardian whose passport is submitted along with the prospective student during the application process.
“The complaints (on the policy of requiring “mahrams” to accompany these young women) also come from parents,” said Al-Harithy. “They object to the rules that prevent their daughters from studying abroad when they have given their full approval for them to do so.”
Contrary to a popular misconception, women in Saudi Arabia are allowed to travel abroad alone (or without their male relatives) if their guardians give permission. The permission slips are affixed to the passports to show to the authorities.
Al-Harithy pointed out that the HRC efforts in this regard are not only because of individual complaints, but also because of the impact of this rule on society and the economy.
With approximately 30 percent of these scholarships going to women, according to official figures, there are many families with college-bound daughters who can’t afford to send a male relative with them, or the male relatives have their own lives and responsibilities that prevent them from being able to take this time off.
According to media reports, the problem has even led some women to seek out marriages of convenience with men willing to become “temporary husbands” and therefore guardians of these women during their stay abroad.
Sociologist Wafa’a Taibah, a professor at King Saud University and HRC member, expressed concern about these short-term marriages. “Such marriages are based on selfish interests,” she said. “They raise the rate of divorce and adversely affect any children born out of these marriages.”
The guardians themselves are affected. Should they decide to accompany their women relatives, they can end up spending years outside the work force and return to Saudi Arabia jobless.
Abdullah, 31, who did not want to provide his family name, is an example. He works in a legal office, but will soon resign to go to Brisbane, Australia, to act as his sister’s guardian while she earns her Ph.D.
“I will have to resign from my work because the management refused to give me three years’ leave,” he said.
Furthermore, in many cases these men will not be able to legally work in the countries where they reside temporarily. Guardians abroad receive monthly allowances from the ministry for staying with their student relatives.
In some countries, such as the United States and Britain, the guardians receive monthly stipends of SR4,000.
Wajeha Al-Huwaider, a Saudi women’s rights activist, said this policy should change and that there is no legitimate religious basis for prohibiting women from living alone in general.
“If we look around us we will find a number of Saudi women living alone with their kids after divorce, or after their husbands pass away,” she said. “Tribal customs and traditions must not interfere in education because it will slow women empowerment.”
