The proposal has again surfaced that Saudi Arabia institute a Ministry for Women.

The idea of an official body to empower women, end discrimination, sexual harassment and inequality in Saudi Arabia as also improve women’s status as a vital component of both society and the economy has its attractions. Such a ministry would be able to effect change. It is a move that so many countries worldwide have taken, although it is also very easy to use the creation of a women’s ministry to pretend that progress is being made while doing nothing in reality.

There may be discrimination, sexual harassment and inequality in Saudi Arabia. There have been regular reports of them in the pages of this newspaper over many years. But it would be a gross injustice to imagine that Saudi Arabia has any international monopoly of them or that it is uniquely prejudiced against women. There is no country on earth where sexual harassment and discrimination do not exist.

The idea that it uniquely discriminates against women certainly exists in the Western mind and its media, where reporters totally forget that not long ago women’s rights and status in their own countries were far from what they are today. In parts of the Britain, for example, 60 or 70 years ago, no self-respecting women would have left the house without her head covered. In Spain and Italy, it is even more recent.

In case of Saudi Arabia the criticism usually comes down to women driving. It is an issue, not least although this is a conservative society, women are increasingly going out to work and it is a massive drain on family finances. Perhaps women will be allowed to drive one day. But who sits behind the wheel in a car should not be the touchstone of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia.

Empowering women is about so much more than that. The issue is what is being done about women’s status here. The situation is not static. In reality, so much is being achieved, and without upsetting the applecart. There are more women at universities than men. Women contribute massively to the Saudi economy, not only by going out to work because their families need the extra income, but also as investors and business operators.

The authorities too have taken a role in empowering women, albeit adopting a gradualist approach. As a result of a decision by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, women will be able to vote, stand as candidates or candidates’ agents in next year’s municipal elections. Similarly there are now 30 women members of the Shoura Council following the change in the law and ruling that women must hold at least a fifth of the 150-member body.

These are no small developments. It took the USA 150 years to give women the right to vote. In Saudi Arabia, albeit on a much lesser scale, it is 10 years — from the first municipal elections in 2005 to a full suffrage in 2015. In fact, hardly a month passes without new rights for women being announced.

Just a year ago, women could not appear as lawyers in court, or own and operate law firms, indeed not all that long ago, they could even be lawyers. Last October, four women were granted licenses to practice in the Kingdom’s law courts and in January, the first woman’s law company was given a license. Last month, the Supreme Judicial Council decided that Saudi women no longer had to have males identify them at court hearings, and would in future require only their identity cards.

It is not plain sailing in a country built on consensus where there are those — women, as well as men — who fear change. But things are moving; Saudi Arabia is heading in the right direction.

Indeed just days ago, the development of a women-only industrial city at Yanbu with its own medical center, sports center, recreational area, park, government buildings, shopping center, hotel and gas station, was announced.

It was perhaps not unsurprising that the announcement and the call for a Women’s Ministry should be in the same week as International Women’s Day. Significantly, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) celebrated the day for the first time ever with an event focusing on the challenges Muslim women face at home, at work and in society at large, and on the opportunities available.

It may be that a women’s ministry is established; it may be that individual ministries have women’s sections to promote their role. What is not in doubt is that women will play an ever greater role in Saudi society. The king and government have said so. Circumstances will drive it.