During the late 20th and early 21st centuries, women's rights in Saudi Arabia have been severely limited in comparison to the rights of women in many of its neighboring countries due to the strict interpretation and application of sharia law. The World Economic Forum's 2016 Global Gender Gap Report ranked Saudi Arabia 141 out of 144 countries for gender parity,[4] down from 134 out of 145 in 2015.[5] The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) elected Saudi Arabia to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women for 2018–2022, in a move that was widely criticised by the international community.[6][7] Women in Saudi Arabia constituted 13% of the country's native workforce as of 2015.[8][9] In 2019, 34.4% of the native workforce of Saudi Arabia were women.[10]
Among the factors that define rights for women in Saudi Arabia are government laws, the Hanbali and Wahhabi schools of Sunni Islam, and traditional customs of the Arabian Peninsula.[11] Women campaigned for their rights with the women to drive movement[12] and the anti male-guardianship campaign,[13][14] which resulted in improvements to their status during the second decade of the twenty-first century.
Women were previously forbidden from voting in all elections or being elected to any political office, but in 2011 King Abdullah let women vote in the 2015 local elections and be appointed to the Consultative Assembly.[15] In 2011, there were more female university graduates in Saudi Arabia than male,[16] and female literacy was estimated to be 91%, which while still lower than male literacy, was far higher than 40 years earlier. In 2013, the average age at first marriage among Saudi females was 25 years.[17][18][19] In 2017, King Salman ordered that women be allowed access to government services such as education and healthcare without the need for consent from a guardian.[20] He also issued a decree allowing women to drive, lifting the world's only ban on women drivers in Saudi Arabia.[21] In 2018, the percentage of women workforce jumped to 20.2%.[22] Due to guardianship and divorce laws, many women were not previously aware when their husbands divorced them. This often created confusion and even led to homelessness. In January 2019, the Saudi supreme court issued a law requiring women to receive a text message from the court when officially divorced.[23] Moreover, new laws were issued on 1 August 2019, granting women the right to register a divorce or a marriage and apply for official documents without requiring their guardian's permission.[24][25]
In the G20 meeting of 2019, Saudi Arabia participated in the women empowerment initiative that aims at reducing the pay gap between male and female as well as supporting women's participation in small business.[26]
On 1 August 2019, a royal decree was published in the Saudi official gazette Um al-Qura that would loosen travel restrictions on Saudi women. Several other liberalizing measures were also included in the decree.[27][28] According to the Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Information, the new laws will come into effect at the end of August 2019.[29]
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