In fact, it is not uncommon for Chinese feminists to be accused of being traitors to their country and beyond Internet trolls, the Chinese government also plays a role in this hostility. Multiple reports have confirmed that activists’ social media accounts and activity have been scrubbed. 

Leta Hong Fincher, author of Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China, writes in POLITICO that such domestic challenges — particularly the lack of press freedom — make it difficult for the Chinese feminist movement to gain the traction that it needs to succeed. This is especially true in a country where fighting for women’s rights is often conflated with other political issues, such as the Hong Kong independence movement. As a result of assumed connections to dissidence against the Chinese government, women who advocate for feminist reform and voice concerns are still largely censored.

However, recent global media coverage of the movement has significantly increased attention on the #MeToo movement in China. With media coverage comes a growing amount of media activism that is allowing the fight for women’s rights to reach global audiences. Essentially, Chinese feminists are taking their voices abroad.

A revival of awareness for the Chinese feminist movement began last year with increased attention around a landmark #MeToo case in China, one that led to massive demonstrations and protests outside a Chinese courtroom. In China, where protests and other means of social assembly are often restricted by the governmental, this was a rare, noteworthy and public show of support.

Zhou Xiaoxun (nicknamed “Xianzi” online) was an intern at China Central Television (CCTV) in 2014. According to the BBC, Zhou was inspired to speak about her own experiences as an intern after she heard about the wave of legal cases against American film producer Harvey Weinstein in 2018. She wrote a 3,000-word essay on the Chinese messaging platform WeChat where she alleged that she was sexually harassed by popular Chinese television host Zhu Jun. 

The essay quickly became viral online, although Zhu denied the allegations. Though there was an intense wave of digital backlash, with Zhou even being sued for defamation, there was an even greater outpouring of solidarity. Zhou told the BBC that after her statement was shared, thousands of survivors reached out to her to express their support. The case was featured prominently throughout the world in media outlets like ABC News Australia, The New York Times and the South China Morning Post. Many lauded the case as a gamechanger for China’s feminist movement. 

Yet, unlike the success of the #MeToo movement in the United States, China’s #MeToo movement is still unable to attain similar amounts of success and thrive domestically. Fincher writes that this is primarily due to China’s heavy suppression of social media access, which the #MeToo movement has often relied on for its audience. With that primary obstacle, global media has led the way, indirectly spearheading the #MeToo movement to greater lengths. Essentially, a lack of Internet freedom and social media access in China has increased the importance of global media and reporting.

Hasan Minhaj’s television show Patriot Act, for example, featured a 2019 episode on Chinese feminists braving political challenges such as imprisonment in order to have their voices heard. Lucas Niewenhuis of SupChina praised Minhaj’s work for being “smart” and “well-researched,” particularly for Patriot Act’s target audience of “liberal American millennials.” Such positive reception illustrates the extent to which media narratives about the issue can shape public opinion and raise awareness of China’s #MeToo movement. 

Greater awareness online and among the public could have social and cultural implications for Chinese feminists abroad, who may find the backing they need to pursue their mission of promoting global awareness for China’s feminist cause. Most importantly, however, China’s #MeToo movement reaching international audiences spotlights the work Chinese feminists are doing. Instead of isolating the Chinese feminist movement to a domestic cry, media activism and awareness elevates the movement to one of global relevance. 

Media coverage of China’s #MeToo movement emphasizes how Chinese feminists are persevering despite speaking out in an environment wholly different from that of the United States, where the movement first began. It provides a comparative perspective on feminism. This international lens on a pressing social issue is important in a world where China is often conceived of as a futuristic authoritarian state and Chinese people are portrayed as without agency of their own. With its global reach, the media can spotlight the universality of the #MeToo movement. 

As media coverage leans towards this cross-cultural education, perhaps Chinese feminists abroad may obtain the leverage they need to change the narrative around sexual assault and harassment. Importantly, some progress has already been made.

Despite its history of cracking down on similar movements, the Chinese government has slowly started to respond to some of these calls amid public outcry for Zhou’s case. In 2020, the government enacted a civil code officially naming and recognizing sexual harassment as a legal misdemeanor. While there is still much to be done, this reform signifies a step for wider social recognition of gender inequalities within China’s legal system. 

Media across the world has the potential to educate audiences against dehumanizing discourse around China, showing how like many of the #MeToo changemakers across the globe, Chinese feminists are fighting similar issues and have agency of their own. China’s #MeToo movement is not solely a domestic issue. The world, too, has a stake in it. 

The post Why China’s #MeToo Movement Matters appeared first on Glimpse from the Globe.

For example, in Eritrea, a country in East Africa, over 80% of the population lacks access to drinking water. Other countries with similarly staggering numbers include Uganda, Ethiopia and Somalia. Essentially, the world is suffering from a global water crisis. 

People around the world are not able to access both the quantity and quality of water necessary to carry out basic human needs, such as cleaning, bathing, drinking and growing food. This crisis has been recognized by the United Nations and was made a Sustainable Development Goal in 2015. The SDGs serve as a “shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet.” As SDG 6, the UN hopes to provide clean water and sanitation to all by 2030. Off track to hit this goal, the UN introduced the SDG 6 Global Acceleration Framework last year to speed up action.

According to USAID, women and children in developing countries walk an average of 3.5 miles a day to fetch potable water. This accessibility challenge exacerbates water vulnerability for millions of people, especially considering that most of the water gathered in developing countries comes from a polluted source, contaminated with raw sewage, surface run-off, industrial effluents, and feces. The surface water contains disease-causing pathogens, such as cholera, typhoid fever and diarrhoea, as well as dangerous toxins like arsenic and lead. Children are particularly vulnerable, considering that 5,000 children die daily from waterborne illness and issues of sanitation. Many of these children already suffer from malnutrition and other diseases. 

The situation is expected to worsen as the global population rises and the water supply falls. According to the World Health Organization, by 2025, half of the world’s population is expected to be in regions labeled “water-stressed.” This is detrimental, due to the impact of water scarcity and water stress on basic sanitation and public health. As demonstrated by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, access to safe and clean water is critical because “handwashing with soap is one of the most effective ways to limit the spread” according to the UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

Additionally, water stress impacts different vulnerable groups to varying extents. This crisis will undoubtedly heighten issues of gender inequality, as many risks fall disproportionately on women. Due to cultural expectations, women and girls are responsible for fetching water in  80% of households with off water premises. As a result, women and girls walk an average of four miles with a 44 pound jerry can to their nearest water source. For parts of the world that suffer from water scarcity, particularly in urban areas, common water sources include surface water along riverbeds, hand-pump boreholes that extract water from the ground, and kiosks at the water source where water is bought from informal vendors. This necessary, yet brutal, walk to retrieve water occurs daily, despite health or weather conditions. 

This daily task is time consuming, limiting the ability of women and girls to do other work or tend to their families. The journey also poses a physical challenge; girls as young as 10-years-old and pregnant women often complete this arduous task. Around the world, women walk a combined 200 million hours daily. 

Women are subject to safety hazards when they collect water. According to a study led by Northwestern University, at least 13% of women reported physical injuries while collecting water, due to falls, traffic accidents, animal attacks and violence. While hauling water, women were twice as likely to get hurt than men. They are also at risk of sexual and physical assault during their trips. 

In Science Daily, journalist Vanessa Offiong reported on the story of Hasiya, a 16-year-old girl from Nasarawa, Nigeria, who left one evening on her 40-minute route to retrieve water. On her return, she noticed a group of boys shouting at her, and because speeding up was nearly impossible given the weight of her filled bucket, The boys circled and kicked Hasiya to the ground, with no one around to help.

Offiong shares another woman’s story of rape while fetching water from the Uke River. The shame surrounding the rape forced to leave the community because she was married. She says the community has stopped reporting rapes to the police, and women walk in groups during the morning. In other cases of assault in areas with sources of groundwater and informal vendors, it has been reported that men operating the pumps have demanded more than payment, abusing their powers to force women into sex to access water.

As UNICEF notes, women and children are paying with lost time and lost opportunities, such as an education. The Council on Foreign Relations reports that, “a one hour reduction in the time spent to walk to the water source increases girls’ school enrollment rates by about 10 percentage points in Yemen, and by about 12 percentage points in Pakistan.” Schooling is critical for development and future economic and social mobility; for each additional year in primary school can increase girls’ future wages by 20%. Girls’ schooling can also help the global economy, for it is predicted that if India increased its enrollment for girls in primary school by one percent, gross domestic product would rise by around $5 billion.

Women are also disproportionately affected by sanitation issues. Over two billion people lack access to improved sanitation, such as proper toilets and handwashing, due to a deficiency of clean water. Globally, two out of five people lack handwashing facilities. Many are forced to practice open defecation, use unimproved facilities or forced to share sanitation facilities. Womens’ increased hygienic needs due to menstruation, pregnancy and childbirth are not met. One out of 10 girls in Africa drops out of school by 8th grade due to menstruation challenges, resulting from a lack of bathrooms and proper sanitation. A study conducted in Bangladesh, where only around 35% of the population has access to safe, uncontaminated drinking water, showed a separate toilet could increase girl enrolment in school by 15%. This is a global issue; a survey done by the government of India found that only 53% of government schools had a separate and functioning toilet for girls. 

A lack of water to properly sanitize also spreads disease, which disproportionately affects women, who have higher exposure to waterborne illnesses through domestic work, such as collecting water, washing clothes and cooking. Women who are pregnant are at increased risk, for over 44 million pregnant women have sanitation-related hookworm, which causes maternal anemia and leads to preterm births. This contributes to the yearly death toll of around one million women yearly due to unclean childbirth. 

As the global water crisis disproportionately affects women, they are still responsible for the collection and resource management of water within the household, in addition to the removal of wastewater. However, on a larger scale, men typically make decisions over water management and lead communities. Male leadership prevents women from making more educated decisions, as they are frontline water managers who have a unique understanding of current systems, approaches and the effect on the community. 

Clean water has the power to transform communities, reduce rates of disease, help equalize genders and create a more efficient economy. The development of proper infrastructure to collect clean water can be used to benefit communities, allowing for more jobs and less time lost fetching surface water.  

Working toward its goal to provide clean water and sanitation, the UN aims to protect ground water resources such as rivers, eliminate water pollution and increase international cooperation around the issue. Non-profit organizations have focused on building community wells, whether shallow wells that are hand dug or deep wells that are drilled. These wells provide clean groundwater that is closer to home. A World Research Institute study proposed that it would only take 1% of global GDP to give global access to water and reach a state of sustainable water management, which would lead to net benefit, as one dollar invested yields a 6.8 dollar return. 

UN General Assembly President Volkan Bozir emphasized the importance of this goal and the imperative all countries and organizations have to act quickly. 

“It is a moral failure that we live in a world with such high levels of technical innovation and success, but we continue to allow billions of people to exist without clean drinking water or the basic tools to wash their hands,” Bokzir said. 

Without equitable access to clean water, entire regions risk further development. And for the women and girls who are most vulnerable, clean water is imperative to securing basic rights.

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But what has often been overlooked in the crisis is the acknowledgment of how different groups of Yemeni citizens are experiencing the conflict differently. In particular, the extreme circumstances of the country’s seven-year-long instability have led many to ignore how Yemeni women often bear the brunt of the issues caused by the crisis, on top of the gender-based challenges they face due to the discriminatory legal system and the crisis’s effect on the level of gender-based violence.

Data about the Yemen crisis’s death toll varies depending on if one focuses on those affected directly by the conflict or if it is extended to deaths caused indirectly. According to the Yemen Data Project, the country has incurred over 18,000 attacks, of which around half were deaths and half were injuries, as a direct result of the conflict from 2016 to now. This, however, does not include casualties caused by other pressing humanitarian issues the crisis in Yemen has created. The United Nations estimates that over 131,000 have died as a result of the indirect effects of the war in Yemen, including factors such as hunger and lack of access to adequate health services. 

According to the Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE), a humanitarian non-governmental organization focused on the fight against poverty, an average of six women are killed every day in Yemen due to the conflict. Women and children are also frequently displaced, comprising 75% of displaced individuals. The majority of displacement in Yemen is internal, with Yemenis moving from place to place within the country to avoid fighting, famine, and disease. Some of the displaced are met with humanitarian aid when they arrive at new locations, such as in Marib where the UNHCR, UN, and International Organization for Migration have attempted to provide food and shelter to those fleeing the city of Al Suwayda. 

Women are often disproportionately affected by humanitarian crises in times of civil unrest or war. In the case of Yemen, this inequality is exacerbated as women’s access to work is heavily limited by socio-cultural norms.

For 14 years, Yemen was ranked last in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap index, and only in 2021 did it manage to be ranked second to last — ahead of newly-added Afghanistan. According to the 2021 index, Yemen is one of the countries with the largest economic gender gap, at 28.2% of the gap closed so far, and income gap, with women’s income being around 7% that of men. It also has one of the lowest percentages of women in the labor force, at 6.3%, and the lowest number of women in managerial positions, at 4.1%. On top of this, Yemen was ranked 154/156 in female economic participation and opportunity, 152/156 in educational attainment, 95/156 in health and survival, and 154/156 in political empowerment.

This is likely the result of an extremely patriarchal culture in Yemen, rooted in persistent and extreme gender roles. Yemeni women and girls experience forced niqab (a veil that covers the whole face excluding the eyes), divorce shame, child marriage, domestic violence, and honor killings — all of which are aggravated by the extended and ongoing crisis in the country. 

According to Amnesty International, the crisis has forced Yemeni women to take on greater roles and responsibilities than traditionally expected of them and, as a result, the levels of violence they experience have increased. Women and girls not only face extreme danger due to the crisis and fighting in the region between the Houthis and Yemeni Forces (supported by UAE and Saudi Arabia backed anti-Houthi forces), but also security and economic risks due to a discriminatory legal system. Left with a damaged system of services and infrastructure that is unable to properly support them or allow them to seek legal remedy, and further faced with things like arbitrary detentions and the disappearance of male family members, women in Yemen are stepping up and suffering as a result. 

In 2000, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1325, known as the Women, Peace and Security resolution. The resolution was enacted in an effort to address the fact that women and girls suffer disproportionately from negative effects during and after times of war. This unfair burden is due to the proliferation of social networks and the magnification of inequality, both of which expose women and girls to things like sexual violence and exploitation in greater capacities than in peacetime. In the nearly two decades since its adoption, the resolution has aimed to help affected women by making them participants in peacemaking efforts and politics. 

The resolution has been somewhat successful in some regions, playing a large part in helping women participate in peace processes in their countries. This has meant enabling women to act as signatories on peace agreements, participate in peace talks and negotiation, assist with humanitarian responses and post-conflict reconstruction, or partake in other peace-driven actions.

Nonetheless, women in Yemen are consistently underrepresented in peace talks, even in the face of concerted effort from the UN and other humanitarian organizations to address this gap. So, despite women taking on the roles vacated by their loved ones who may have been lost in the crisis or forcibly taken and held, they are not able to advocate for their own safety. 

This, however, is not the full extent of challenges that Yemeni women face. According to the World Food Program (WFP), in times of crisis, women and girls are put at greater risk for humanitarian issues, on top of the gender-based issues they already experience. One of the most common problems is that girls are often pulled out of school or forced to marry early in order for families to survive, as many are unable to afford food alongside paying for school or an additional child. The WFP also reports that, for women, one of the main dangers is malnutrition. This can be caused by the burden of pregnancy — more than one million pregnant and lactating Yemeni women required malnutrition treatment or prevention intervention in 2019 — or the burden of childcare. These women have to become self-sacrificing to a dangerous extent, often giving up their own food to feed their children.

Right now in Yemen, around 50,000 people are facing famine-like conditions, and 11 million more are experiencing food insecurity. Young children are particularly vulnerable to hunger, with around half of Yemeni children under five expected to experience acute malnutrition, according to the WFP. 

As the Yemen crisis fades from news headlines, due to the nature of it being such an extended conflict, it’s important to stay up-to-date on the current situation. This is particularly true when considering how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the war-torn country and its most vulnerable populations.

COVID-19 is not the first public health crisis to affect Yemen, as cholera, diphtheria, measles, and dengue fever were all reported in the country prior, with cholera affecting a suspected two million Yemenis since 2016. However, Yemen was, and is not, prepared to handle the pandemic. According to the World Health Organization, medical facilities and personnel have not been left alone during the conflict. More than half of the 5,000 or so health centers have closed and many health professionals have been forced to flee. On top of this, health aid has been obstructed by the Houthi and other authorities.

Considering the heavy use of starvation as a weapon of war in Yemen, primarily by the Houthis, the impact of hunger and starvation on an individual’s health and the disproportionate way women experience hunger has escalated the pandemic. In April 2020, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Yemen warned that, based on epidemiological projections, nearly 16 million people in Yemen could be infected by COVID-19 under the current conditions. 

The actual number of cases in Yemen is difficult to know as data on COVID-19 in the country is difficult to collect. The government has only reported deaths in the hundreds, but considering the disastrous nature of the healthcare system and the fact that war makes health crises worse, the number is likely much higher. Still, There is evidence that the country is currently experiencing a second wave of the disease. On top of the expected rise in cholera cases with the rainy season in May, this could be devastating for the population, and it will further complicate and inflame the suffering and discrimination that women in Yemen already face.

There is hope, however, as at the end of March 2021, Yemen received its first batch of COVID-19 vaccines, which included 360,000 doses, 13,000 safety boxes and 1.3 million syringes, through COVAX. This was the first step in the plan to vaccinate the country, with an estimated 1.9 million doses expected to be delivered to the country throughout the rest of the year. Those leading the vaccine effort will be forced to navigate the crumbling healthcare system and figure out how to equitably distribute vaccinations. 

Women are suffering in Yemen as a result of the humanitarian crisis, and the COVID-19 health crisis has only made things worse. It is important to understand and acknowledge the nuanced convergence of humanitarian, security and public health crises in Yemen. Otherwise, it is easy to get lost in the severity and horror often broadcasted and covered through global media. 

The post The Yemen Crisis is Disproportionately Affecting Women and Girls appeared first on Glimpse from the Globe.

Muskan and Rashid’s story is only one that represents the numerous and widespread challenges interfaith couples are facing in India. These couples have faced targeted persecution by Indian authorities under the new anti-conversion laws instituted across the country. The new laws are being publicized to halt “Love Jihad,” a term coined by Hindu nationalist factions to imply that Muslim men trick Hindu women into marriage for the sole purpose of converting them to Islam.

In India, marriage is a social process and practice, the boundaries of which are often defined by customs, traditions and even prejudices. Marriages within the Hindu community itself are primarily performed within caste groups, with only 11% of marriages per year being inter-caste marriages. The stigma is further heightened for interfaith marriages, making them even more of a rarity in the Indian social fabric, with only 2.1% of women who marry outside their faith. 

State legislatures have historically passed laws to regulate religious conversions, and currently, nine states have provisions regulating religious conversions to varying degrees. Even though lawmakers from the ruling Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) claim that the laws are not meant to target any specific religious communities, the majority of the cases registered under the law in states like Uttar Pradesh have been against Muslim men. 

The Love Jihad conspiracy and the resulting anti-conversion laws seem to be just another additive to the ruling party’s ongoing conquest to further marginalize India’s 200 million Muslims through various legal measures. The passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019, which provides citizenship to only non-Muslim refugees from neighboring countries, along with the government’s strict criminalization of the Muslim “Triple Talaq” divorces, has left little to the imagination when it comes to the ideological standing of the ruling party.

“This law will prevent innocent girls being forcefully converted on the pretext of marriage,” said Narottam Mishra, the home minister in BJP-ruled central state of Madhya Pradesh. Prime Minister Modi, meanwhile, has mostly remained silent on the issue and the Central Government has said it has no plans on drawing up federal legislation on the matter, and will leave it up to the states. 

The Love Jihad conspiracy is not the creation of the current Prime Minister Narendra Modi nor his party, the BJP. Rather, it is the culmination of the continuous stereotyping of Muslim men as “predatory” since India’s colonial days. In 1924, a Muslim bureaucrat from Cawnpore (now Kanpur) was accused of “abducting and seducing” a Hindu woman and forcibly converting her to Islam. The idea later gained political relevance in the late 2000s when it was taken up by fringe Hindu-right groups in southern India, eventually leading to quasi-legitimizing orders by state courts that ordered probes and annulled interfaith marriages. Later, it was used by the BJP to stir up communal tensions and cause riots in other parts of the country for electoral gains. 

The Love Jihad conspiracy has proven to be wildly successful talking for the BJP, triggering all the right politically-conducive anxieties — a majoritarian pseudo-victimhood in the secular republic, patriarchal insecurities in an increasingly modernizing India and blatant Islamophobia that unites Hindu nationalist sympathizers like no other factor.

On January 6, 2021, The Supreme Court of India refused to stay the enactment of the latest anti-conversion laws in states across the country, thus indirectly giving green lights to laws resembling the one that was used to arrest Rashid and Muskan. Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, implemented a law called “the Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion” causing much uproar as it established a set jail term of ten years for a marriage conducted for the sole purpose of religious conversion. 

However, the onus of determining the “validity of a union” has been placed on the same authorities and police who already harass and intimidate interfaith couples who seek to marry. India does not have a uniform civil code due to the diverse array of historical customs and traditions of different communities. As a result, couples must register their marriages through laws that govern personal relationships and disputes of their specific communities. 

Interfaith couples, meanwhile, have used the Special Marriages Act of 1954 that requires verification from local authorities, a waiting period of thirty days, and mandates the publication of their intent to wed in a newspaper in case objections might arise. The law also vests the authorities with the power to investigate any complaint against the couple, which puts interfaith couples in a precarious position as most of them seek to get married without parental consent or knowledge.

As much as the Love Jihad conspiracy is about the broader project of Hindu nationalism and the implicit strokes of Islamophobia it contains, it is also about policing women’s sexuality and choices. Marriages of choice are extremely rare in India (only 4%) as the concept of arranged marriage, parents’ choosing brides and grooms for their children, reigns supreme. The practice of picking spouses might come off as just conserving familial customs of elderly respect, but it is equally about preserving puritanical standards of caste, class and religion. Now, the Indian state is willing to police love that does not measure up to those puritanical parameters.

The post India’s Anti-Conversion Laws and the “Love Jihad” Myth, Explained appeared first on Glimpse from the Globe.

Some notable ones as of late are a woman’s right to drive, granted after the law stripping this right was abolished in June 2018, a woman’s right to obtain a passport and travel abroad without consent from a male guardian if she is at least twenty-one, granted through an amendment in August 2019, and most recently, a woman’s right to join the armed forces, passed in February 2021.

These laws are responded to with global media frenzies, reported on by the largest news outlets in every major region and country. As a result, it is not uncommon for people to think that Saudi Arabia has generally improved in women’s rights. However, according to the Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) 2020 World Report on Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabian women are still required to have male guardian approval for many things such as getting married, leaving prison, or obtaining healthcare. Women also face discrimination in regards to family, divorce, children and child custody matters. On top of this, men are still able to file for guardianship of women based on perceived “disobedience,” which can lead to women being forcibly imprisoned or kept in the male guardian’s home. 

This report shows little change in Saudi Arabia’s position in both the HRW 2019 World Report and the HRW 2018 World Report. So, despite chipping away at the guardianship system with small legislative changes, the overall treatment of women, in regards to legislation, has remained fairly consistent. 

Perhaps even more egregious than the persistence of the guardianship system is the Saudi government’s treatment of those who have spoken out against it. While the government is praised in the press for somewhat minor changes in the system, the women’s rights activists calling for change are arbitrarily imprisoned. Ahead of the lifting of the ban on women driving in 2018, over a dozen women’s rights activists in Saudi Arabia were arrested. After being held for a year, many faced trials throughout 2019. These trials were closed, barring journalists and diplomats from attending. One of the activists, Loujain al-Hathloul, was only released this February after spending over one thousand days in detention. Even after her release, she faces travel bans and a suspended three-year sentence under Saudi terrorism laws.

Other women’s rights activists arrested alongside al-Hathloul were said to have been released as well, but it is likely they are under similar restrictions, diminishing their ability to speak up. This was not an isolated incident. According to Amnesty International, in April of 2019 fourteen women’s rights activists were arrested for peacefully supporting women’s rights movements. The individuals were kept in detention through the end of the year without charge or trial. 

Many believe that the Saudi government’s decisions to make changes to their policies regarding women’s rights come from international pressure over anything else. This is a particularly popular stance when considering the most recent reforms, as President Biden has put pressure on the Saudi government through his cabinet’s commitment to protecting human rights abroad. This is thought by many to be the main reason behind the release of al-Hathloul, but it does not reflect a real change in the will of the Saudi government to protect and help their female citizens. 

Aside from the issue of stifling women’s rights activists, the Saudi government’s actual reforms seem to be largely cosmetic. Despite passing a domestic abuse ban in 2013, the Saudi government still, in many cases, mistreats the women who decide to report such abuse. In 2020, a large social media movement started in Saudi Arabia where women used the hashtag “Why I Didn’t Report It” to discuss their experiences with domestic abuse and the legislation surrounding it. Women who participated spoke of smear campaigns and victim-blaming if they reported, and many were arrested after being reported by their male guardians for disobedience. As long as the male guardianship system exists, many women in Saudi Arabia do not feel safe going to the police and are unable to escape abusive situations. 

There has also been a large resistance to the changes in the law from those that want the guardianship system to remain intact. Many women face backlash from their families for invoking their recently granted rights. So, although women may have the legal right to join the military, get a job, drive a car or get a passport, all without the consent of a male guardian, many still feel obligated to get permission from their father, brother, or husband depending on how accepting the family is of the new laws.  

Considering that women have been beaten, arrested, and, in extreme cases, killed for disobedience under the male guardianship system, its continued existence does not set a promising precedent for the future of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia. Until major action is taken to dismantle the discriminatory guardianship system and women’s rights activists are no longer silenced, it is difficult to say that the Saudi government has made any serious headway in promoting women’s rights.

It seems many recent reforms came from a place of economic strategizing rather than a serious commitment to change. For example, the expansion of jobs women are now allowed to work expands the Saudi workforce, boosting the economy. It’s very possible that this is the main goal for the Saudi government when taking into account the fact that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has repeatedly dedicated himself to diversifying the Saudi economy in preparation for a post-oil future. Allowing women to participate in the economy in a greater capacity would be a large part of that. 

It is worth questioning why the governments and news organizations of the world praise Saudi Arabia for these small changes without demanding the real changes necessary for achieving gender equality. For countries like the United States, which has a vested interest in maintaining good relations with the world’s largest oil producer, it has become common practice to turn a blind eye to the questionable practices of the Saudis. 

This was affirmed just recently with the Biden Administration’s decision not to penalize the Saudi Crown Prince over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi despite their aforementioned commitment to human rights. Khashoggi’s murder on October 2, 2018, inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, caused international outrage due to the suspected involvement of the Saudi government. In February 2021, a U.S. intelligence report on the murder was released directly implicating the Saudi crown prince. Biden decided that the relationship was too important to risk direct punishment, citing counter-terrorism and facing Iran as his reasoning.

Without a greater commitment to abolishing the male guardianship system and with a continued history of suppressing the voices of women’s rights activists, it is hard to believe that the Saudi government wants to bring about real change. In combination with inaction on an international level, it is likely that this pattern of making minimal revisions to legislation preceded or followed by sweeping crackdowns on activism will continue to act as the only way the Saudi government addresses women’s rights.

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The Guardianship System: Why Saudi Women Are Fleeing

In January of this year, 18-year old Rahaf Mohammed Al-Qunun barricaded herself in an airport hotel room in Bangkok as she pleaded for asylum after renouncing Islam and escaping Saudi Arabia. Al-Qunun was planning on applying for asylum upon arrival in Australia but was stopped in transit in Thailand where officials confiscated her passport and booked her a flight back to her family. After blockading her hotel room door with mattresses and chairs, she launched a twitter campaign to get the attention of the UNHCR which soon went viral. Ultimately, after a long standoff with airport officials, Al-Qunun was able to meet with the UNHCR and four days later flew to Canada where she was granted asylum.

However, unlike Al-Qunun, not all women who attempt to flee Saudi Arabia are able to successfully obtain asylum and escape persecution. In 2017, Dina Ali Lasloom, a 24-year old Saudi woman, was similarly stopped in transit in the Philippines while on her way to Australia. Her video appeal for asylum meant to avoid being killed by her family members also gained international attention – but not before several of her uncles found her in the airport. She was forced to board a flight back to Saudi Arabia where she is now believed to be held in a detention center.

As more and more Saudi women seek to run away from troubling situations, such internet campaigns and their subsequent stories of success or failure are becoming increasingly common.

Why are Women Fleeing?

Women are increasingly seeking to escape Saudi Arabia for several reasons including domestic violence, inequality in divorce and childcare, and discrimination when seeking employment. However, the most striking issue facing women in Saudi Arabia is the lack of freedom resulting from strict guardianship laws. From birth until death, women are treated as minors and need the approval of a male guardian, usually their husband, father or uncle, before taking certain actions.  Their constraints include needing consent to marry, leave jail, get an education, apply for a passport and travel outside the country. Consequently, women are subject to the decisions made by their male guardian even if the guardian is abusive or excessively controlling.

Those who try to flee and are caught can be jailed until their guardian approves their release and often face increased abuse upon returning home. Despite the risks, for many, the danger is worth it. In 2015, the Saudi Ministry of Labor and Social Development documented more than 1,750 women fleeing their homes to escape situations of extreme authority.

The Saudi Government’s Strict Response

While social media outlets like Twitter have given struggling Saudi women a tool to seek protection and international assistance, recent developments in technology have also aided in strict enforcement of guardianship laws. Most notably, the app Absher has made it easier for guardians to track and control the travel of women. The app, developed by the Saudi government, allows citizens to access government services including the strict monitoring of women. Through the app, guardians choose where women can go, allocate the duration of travel and determine which airports they are allowed access. Furthermore, if a woman leaves a specified area, SMS alerts are sent to the guardian’s phone. Although both Apple and Google have faced harsh criticism for carrying the app, neither have removed it from their app stores, and the Saudi Interior Ministry says that Absher currently has more than 11 million users.

The Saudi government has also increased its efforts to prevent women from fleeing through campaigns that portray running away as betraying the nation. A recent video from the General Department for Counter Extremism compares women who flee the country to men who join terrorist groups. Furthermore, attempts to change the system are stifled as women’s rights activists who protest guardianship laws are being increasingly detained.

Why Are Saudi Laws So Strict?

Women’s rights in Saudi Arabia are greatly influenced by traditional customs of the Arabian Peninsula and Sunni Islam. Saudi Arabia, however, differs from most other Sunni-majority nations as it is dominated by an especially conservative form of Sunni Islam, Wahhabism, which focuses on a strict, literal interpretation of the Koran. This movement was founded by Mohamed ibn Abdul Wahhab in the 18th century and has had the support of the royal family for centuries. As a result of these political-religious ties, Wahhabism has played a role in the creation of current Saudi government policies such as the requirement that women wear the full black abaya, a long robe which covers a woman’s full body, and strict gender segregation. Internationally, this extreme interpretation of Islam has been greatly condemned. In 2013, Wahhabism was identified by the European Parliament in Strasbourg as the “main source of global terrorism,” as many believe it has contributed to the rise of terrorist groups. However, in 2017, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman promised a return to “moderate Islam” in order to put the country in unison with other nations around the world and make the country more open to foreigners, although it remains unclear how this will turn out in coming years.

The Future of Women’s Rights

While the Crown Prince lifted the ban on female drivers last year and recently launched an initiative to improve work opportunities for women, the strict guardianship system remains in place. Reform of this system is essential for the progress of women’s rights.

In March, Saudi Arabia made a commitment before the UNHCR for the second time in six years to abolish its guardianship laws. However, continued international pressure is necessary to ensure that the country sticks by the recommendations accepted in its Universal Periodic Review. Countries with significant influence in Saudi Arabia such as the U.S. and U.K. that have largely remained silent need to speak out against the detention of human rights defenders in the country and push for the Crown Prince to add civil rights to his reform agenda. Furthermore, UNHCR members need to promote more specific recommendations to be accepted, rather than the current vague terms that Saudi Arabia has accepted. The country usually resorts to making minor adjustments to its guardianship system rather than overhauling the entire system as promised. The best way to reduce the number of women fleeing abroad and to improve their situation at home is to reform the domestic system, and countries with economic influence in Saudi Arabia need to take the lead and increase pressure.

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At age 12, a visit to the hairdresser marked a rare occasion for Umm Mohammad. “We were all very excited, as each girl had just been given a new, white dress.” And yet, the day didn’t proceed as expected. “Suddenly this man, who was really a stranger to us, started to undress us,” she told the German news organization Deutsche Welle. “Then he got out his razor blade.” Under no anesthesia and unhygienic conditions, Mohammad underwent an experience that would skew her perception of womanhood and traumatize her for the rest of her life. Her “circumcision” left literal and figurative scars that transcend the pain she experiences every day living in Cairo’s slums. Mohammad’s experience is but one narrative of the oppressed female experience in Egypt.

Among a myriad of other human rights violations, Egypt subjects 91% of its female population to genital mutilation, a procedure defined by a clitoridectomy, the cutting of the clitoris and external genitals, or infibulation, the sewing closed of the vaginal opening. Although the cultural practice is male-engineered, it’s most often propagated by mothers, who believe it to curb their daughters’ sexual desires and preserve their chastity. Above all, it maintains family honor and ensures marital prospects. However, these mothers are merely vehicles through which men establish a patriarchal dominance over women and deny them agency over their bodies and behavior.

Because many men spurn marriage to women who haven’t undergone some form of female genital mutilation (FGM), perceiving them to be “unclean”, mothers subject their daughters to the procedure in order to maximize marriage prospects. In this way, FGM has become a cultural practice for young girls as a critical right of passage into womanhood. However, it is men who have calculated this narrow definition of womanhood as a system of self-oppression. Men aren’t oppressing women; women are oppressing women. This ingenious and twisted system works in two ways: girls avoid pre-marital sex because they both fear the pain of breaking their stitching and the dishonor that comes with subverting a system that values honor above all else.

The practice, however, plays but one part in the female narrative around sexuality and honor. Every aspect of it caters to a man’s desires. Let’s consider infibulation, the sewing shut of the vaginal opening, which leaves only a small portion open for urination and menstruation. Many men physically prefer penetrating a woman who’s undergone the procedure; her first sexual encounter, and even subsequent times, will require him to literally rip her open. On a psychological level, the surgery allows men to claim women as property, which feeds into the cultural pressure for women to ‘save their chastity’ for their husbands. But, men are really stealing a woman’s agency over her own body; once that has been claimed, the woman often feels powerless. Yet, the practice doesn’t merely increase a man’s pleasure; it simultaneously decreases the woman’s by removing what many would argue is the epicenter of female sexual pleasure. Many women will never feel any pleasure, insinuating that female sexuality is of both shameful and secondary importance—even within the confines of marriage.

While many North African countries have yet to ban FGM as a practice, Egypt already has, which might indicate a turning of the tide. According to the UN, legislative steps towards punishing perpetrators are critical. Following the death of an 11-year-old during an FGM procedure in 2008, Egyptian legislators passed the Child Rights Law No. 126 to punish perpetrators with three months to two years of imprisonment—or a meager $700 fine. However, November 2014 marked the first time an incident reached trial. And, more discouraging, the rates of FGM haven’t changed significantly since 2008. This indicates a discrepancy between law and reality, which could be explained by Egypt’s political instability.

The Mubarak Regime prevented many medical professionals from conducting the procedure since they feared the repercussions of Suzanne’s Law, which outlawed FGM and liberalized divorce laws. No one had been prosecuted under his rule; however, in an attempt to obscure the realities of authoritarianism to the West, the Mubarak Regime gave women more opportunities to secure new freedoms. However, under ambiguous political authority, doctors now express a flagrant disregard for the law, willing to accommodate any family willing to pay the price. In fact, there’s been a drastic shift in those who actually facilitate FGM procedures. Egyptians are increasingly turning to medical professionals instead of local community members. Unlike many other MENA countries with ubiquitous female circumcision practices in which local village circumcisers or barbers perform the procedure, Egyptian doctors now conduct most operations—77% of them, in fact. Though this is a safer method than that which Umm Mohammad endured, it is concerning that doctors are willing to conduct a procedure with no medical benefits and a slew of physical and psychological risks. While engaging and educating local communities remains an important facet of combatting this savagery against women, it appears that directing law enforcement towards doctors might be more effective.

Within a convoluted system of authority and a burgeoning democracy, human rights need to be at the forefront of the public dialogue in Egypt. Women are especially vulnerable to abuse, especially under a cultural backdrop that perpetuates sexual violence. With a growing population of dissenters to the practice, it’s up to the government to enforce its codified laws against FGM, starting with prosecution and education of doctors. However, Egyptian women might have to wait a while to see their rights actualized, since it is unlikely that these changes will arrive under President al-Sisi, widely known for defending the “virginity tests” conducted on female protesters in 2011.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors, or governors.

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