Saudi women cause stir in Paris

In a ground-breaking move, a delegation of nine prominent Saudi women arrived in Paris in December bearing the bold message that the status of women was changing in their highly conservative country.

The presence in France of these well-educated, highly articulate women was a striking indication that the pace of reform is quickening in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They were business executives, university professors, scientists, human-rights activists, all very much at ease in answering often tough questions at a crowded press conference.

One member of the delegation, Lama Al Sulaiman, a young woman in her early forties, has a degree in biochemistry from an English university. She is the first woman to be elected to the governing board of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and is also on the board of the Saudi Fransi bank.

Speaking with authority in both Arabic and French, her pale, intense face wrapped in a black head scarf, she made a considerable impression.

In the kingdom, the impulse for reform is coming from the very top — from King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz himself, as members of the delegation made clear. His priority, they said, was the wide participation of women in Saudi public life.

The king's daughter, Princess Adeelah, herself a campaigner for women's rights, chose the members of the delegation but was unable to accompany them to France.

In a country like Saudi Arabia, where segregation is the rule, where women are heavily veiled in public, have restricted employment possibilities, cannot drive cars or travel abroad without being accompanied by a male member of their family, these ideas are little short of revolutionary. It is significant that even here — an immensely rich but socially traditional country, where clerical views carry great weight — the empowerment of women is gaining momentum.

Last September, when the king presided at the inauguration of one of his pet projects, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, he faced sharp criticism from hardline clerics, because the campus of this high-tech graduate college is coeducational, the very first in the country. The king's response was to remove his most prominent critic, Shaikh Sa'ad Al Shithri, from the Council of Senior Scholars, to which he had recently appointed him.

Something of a tussle appears to be taking place between the royal family and the clerical establishment, the Ulema — with the king firmly imposing his authority, but in his usual persuasive and non-confrontational manner.

Identity

The Saudi women who made the trip to Paris stressed their Muslim identity. For them Khadija, first wife of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) and a wealthy businesswoman, was a role model. They had chosen to work, as she had done in her time. This did not mean, they hastened to add, that they wished to live as in the early centuries of Islam.

They were inspired by Khadija — as well as by Aisha, the Prophet's favourite wife to whom he was betrothed after Khadija's death, and who was later to become an authority on Islamic doctrine — but they also insisted that they intended to benefit fully from modern life. The ‘real Islam' they advocated was one in which women were respected and were given every opportunity to participate in public life.

Although frowned upon today in conservative Saudi society, the mixing of sexes was common in the early centuries, members of the delegation said, and should be so today — although it had to be done, they added, with decorum and decency, not in any decadent fashion.

The veil, one of them said, was more of a problem in France than in the Muslim world, where it was not an obstacle to the promotion of women. "We want parity with men," they said, "but we recognise that it has to come gradually."

They explained that the king's reforms had met resistance, but this resistance was more social than religious. While change was being encouraged from the top, Saudi society, anxious to protect its traditional identity, was reacting with fear.

In Paris, members of the delegation met with several government officials, educational establishments and feminist groups. They came away, they said, more than ever convinced of the need for quotas for women — that is to say, for positive discrimination in jobs. At present Saudi women are employed mainly in education and health.

They wanted to expand opportunities for them in other professions. They were pressing for women to be allowed to work in factories. Article 160 of the Labour Law, which prohibited the mixing of sexes in the work-place, had been rescinded, they said.

According to the latest report on Arab women's access to economic and financial resources, compiled by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, participation of Saudi women in the labour force has crept up from 17 per cent in 2000 to 20 per cent in 2007. Women clearly still have a long way to go to reach parity but, as the delegation in Paris stressed, the trend is in the right direction.

Saudi women are even edging their way into politics, long the exclusive preserve of men. On February 14, American-educated Saudi Noura Al Fayez was appointed the first ever deputy minister in Saudi Arabia, in charge of women's education. The appointment was widely hailed as a milestone. Others will undoubtedly follow.

Patrick Seale is a commentator and author of several books on Middle East affairs.