Saudi Arabia has long been the only country in the world that does not allow women to drive. Now, there appears to be a new development in controlling the movements of its female population: the Kingdom has reportedly introduced an electronic tracking system alerting male guardians when a woman has left the country.
Reports emerged of the system last week when Manal al-Sherif, a women’s rights campaigner who has urged women to defy the driving ban, was alerted by a husband who received a message from the immigration authorities advising him that his wife had left the international airport in Riyadh. He happened to be traveling with her.
Women are treated as legal minors in the Saudi guardianship system, requiring permission from their male guardian if they want to work or study. Women who want to travel outside the country need their male guardian to sign what is known as a ‘yellow sheet’ at the airport or border.
Badriya al-Bishr a columnist critical of the Kingdom’s conservative interpretation of Islamic law, said to the AFP that women were being held under a “state of slavery”, adding that “this is technology used to serve backwardness in order to keep women imprisoned.”
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