Saudi women are pushing boundaries, says HRW

NEW YORK: Women in Saudi Arabia have made progress in participating in sports for health, competition, and professional opportunities, Human Rights Watch
said Thursday.
Four women will represent the country in Rio, an improvement from the two who competed in the 2012 London Summer Olympics.
“Saudi women are making tremendous strides in the world of sports — climbing the tallest mountains and swimming the lengths of rivers,” said Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch. “They are showing their determination, talent, effort, and heart despite daunting legal and cultural hurdles."
In a positive move, on Aug. 1, the General Authority for Sports announced a new female department and appointed Princess Reema bint Bandar Al-Saud as its head.
“The creation of a new women’s department in the General Authority for Sports is a welcome move. The department should lead reforms for women’s access to sport and other physical exercise in the country,” said Worden.
The country has made some positive, if incremental, changes. On physical education in state schools for girls, public reports in recent years indicate that some government schools are now offering physical education to girls. Private schools have long been able to offer physical education, and in May 2013, the authorities ruled that those programs could continue, provided that girls wear “decent clothing” and are supervised by female instructors, the rights organization said.
Women are also opening female-only fitness studios across the country. But major challenges — official, bureaucratic, and cultural — remain for women who want or need to practice sports for health reasons, for fun, or to compete.
The US-based Human Rights Watch interviewed Saudi women from various walks of life, including athletes, activists, doctors, trainers, and entrepreneurs, who described how they are pressing ahead to claim their right to play sports and to open fitness centers.
One advocate of fitness for women is using her Chamber of Commerce position to lobby for more women’s gyms. Other women are pushing boundaries by running women’s private sports teams as businesses, opening unlicensed gyms, pressuring authorities, and training in and outside of Saudi Arabia to represent the country in international competition.
A serious focus on reforms to state schools, gym licensing, and training of physical education teachers by the General Authority for Sports, the Education and Health ministries, and the Saudi National Olympic Committee could have a lasting positive impact on the lives and well-being of millions of women and girls in the country and help them realize their equal rights to practice sport.
The Kingdom's Vision 2030 could also improve access to sport for women and girls. The road map says: “Opportunities for the regular practice of sports have often been limited. This will change.”
In 2011, the Education Ministry wrote to Human Rights Watch that “the issue of girls' physical education is under serious consideration as one of the priorities of the ministry’s leadership that regards physical education in schools as one of the necessities helping male and female students to stay healthy.”
In April 2014, the Shoura Council directed the Education Ministry to study the possibility of introducing mandatory physical education for girls in state schools in compliance with Shariah rules on dress and sex segregation. The council voted overwhelmingly — 92 to 18 — in favor of the recommendation.