Saudi anti male-guardianship campaign

The anti male-guardianship campaign is an ongoing campaign by Saudi women against the requirement under the law to obtain permission from their male guardian for activities such as getting a job, travelling internationally or getting married.[1] Wajeha al-Huwaider deliberately tried to travel internationally without male guardianship permission in 2009 and encouraged other women to do likewise.[2] Women activists wrote a letter to the Saudi Minister of Labor and brought media attention to the issue in 2011.[3] A 14,000-signature petition was given to royal authorities by Aziza al-Yousef in 2016 following a Human Rights Watch report on male guardianship.[1] A crackdown against the activists took place in mid-May 2018, with 13 arrests as of 22 May 2018.[4][5] Several of the women remained in prison as of December 2018.[6] Some of the women activists were tortured, some of them in the supervision of Saud al-Qahtani, a close advisor of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman.[6]

  1. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Guardian_2016_petition was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference CNN_right_to_travel was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference ArabNews_antiguard was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Indep_May2018_total13 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference ThReut_crackdown was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference rna was invoked but never defined (see the help page).