The Saudi Women Revolution Statement

[The following statement in English and Arabic (below) was written by Mona Kareem on Friday March 18th, 2011, and can be found on her personal blog.]

After the recent importance of Social Media in creating change in our societies, a lot of Saudi women have been active on Twitter through the hash tag #SaudiWomenRevoltion to write their demands of applying social equality in Saudi society, giving examples and telling stories on the injustice they are facing in their society.

- The Saudi Woman cannot make a bank account for her kids, enroll them in schools, ask for their school files, or travel with them without the permission of her male guardian.

 

Second –Saudi Arabia Should prohibit, fight, and ban violence against women and create laws to save women rights to sue everyone who use violence against them even if they were their legal male guardians.

Third – Saudi Arabia should completely ban marriage for females under the age of 18. The country has faced many cases of girls who were under the age of 18, being married off for money. Human Rights Watch 2010 report stated that a divorced man has married off his 12 years old daughter to an old man for 80.000 Saudi Riyals (21.300 US Dollars).

Fourth –Saudi Arabia should guarantee the right of car driving to women. The Saudi woman is being obligated to hire male drivers to practice her normal daily life and to go to work. A regular male driver costs 1000 Saudi Riyals monthly (266 US dollars) and a lot of women cannot afford to pay that amount of money.

Fifth –Saudi Arabia should impose complete gender equality in different areas and give the same responsibilities and rights to both genders including the right for the Saudi women to pass citizenship to her kids, which happens to be a natural right for Saudi males.

Sixth –Saudi Women should have their complete political rights which are guaranteed to Saudi men such as running and voting for elections in municipality councils. Women should also be part of Shuwara council and all state institutions, foundations, firm, and ministers including the ministers of justice and foreign affairs.

Seventh –After activating all previous rights, The Royal Court should establish a powerful women committee to activate the role of women in all aspects of the society, fight sexism legally, and spread awareness on the danger of sexism on the society.

 

- المرأة السعودية لا تستطيع أن تفتح حساباً مصرفياً لأطفالها أو تسجلهم في المدارس أو تطلب ملفاتهم المدرسية أو تسافر معهم من غير إذن من ولي الأمر.