When the Human Rights Watch issued a report earlier this year saying that Saudi women live in a perpetual childhood status due to their complete dependence on a male guardian, the official response from Saudi Human Rights Society was one of condemnation of the "biased" report. Articles were churned in the papers accusing the Western human rights bodies of being wrong, misinformed and downright wrong.
I won't go into the report or the defense made here to contradict it. I'll just narrate the contents of several conversations I have had in the past two weeks. They might give you a better idea of the real situation.
I'll start with the main case, of Laila who went home for a brief vacation, and had to renew her passport. She was told that it was a simple procedure and can be done in one day. What she was not told was that the applicant should be a man if everything were to be completed in one day! With confidence she went to the passport department after making sure to ask her oldest brother to go with her. She took all relative documents with her. But as soon as she went into the office of the duty official, it became apparent that the one-day procedure was not meant for her. She was told, or rather her brother was told (as the official chose not to address her) that she couldn't renew her passport unless her father came to the passport department to sign on the papers as her male guardian. As her father was ill and in no condition to undertake such a trip, the brother was supposed to be the guardian for that requirement. But it turns out that Leila and her brother were naïve to think that things work out according to their logic. She tried to explain to the official that she has to travel on time, but the official would not even look at her. Instead the official looked at the brother saying, "come back tomorrow and see if you can convince the (the head of the department?) and don't bring her with you."
It became clear to her that her presence was not welcome at all. It is a job for men; women have no place there. The ordeal went on for days together. The brother became a regular visitor to the department, trying in vain to find the office responsible for the renewal, but met with the same demand. If the passport is to be renewed, the father has to be brought in. Finally, he took his father, ill and frail, on a hot Ramadan morning to the department, only to find out that there was no one working that day, although it was a working day.
Laila's problem continued for two weeks and was finally resolved by pulling some strings. But the father's ordeal continued. Although he was spared another trip to the passport department, he had to go to the airport to sign another paper stating his approval of his daughter traveling alone.
During a conversation with a friend of hers who happened to study at the same university abroad, Laila found out that her friend has a similar problem, but she managed to solve it before coming back home through the Saudi Embassy. Why didn't she do the same, I asked her. With a sarcastic smile she said, "my friend had her husband doing the paper work. When I called the embassy to inquire about renewing my passport I was told that I have to do it from Jeddah."
Obviously the male guardian system works abroad too. To add to her sense of humiliation, Laila found out that a colleague of her (a man) went to the passport department the same day and got his passport renewed in a couple of hours. Wish as she may for such treatment, she couldn't have it, for she was not a complete citizen. She was a woman who needed permission.
