A female teacher from Washington State is trapped in Saudi Arabia due to the kingdom’s controversial guardianship system, which gives men considerable legal power over women.
According to The New York Times, 31-year-old Bethany Vierra moved to Saudi Arabia in 2011 to teach at a university and, two years later, married an “ambitious” and “charming” Saudi businessman. Four years ago, they welcomed a daughter, Zaina.
Under Saudi law, a woman can request a marriage cancellation if the man is “not living up to his duties.” So when her marriage fell apart, Vierra filed for divorce, citing emotional and verbal abuse.
Although they are now officially divorced, Vierra’s ex-husband still has near total control over her life because of the system, which requires basic activities like travel, marriage, and employment be approved by a male relative, known as a guardian. Last month, Vierra’s husband let her residency expire, meaning she can’t request documents needed to travel or access her bank account. Essentially, she can’t leave Saudi Arabia without his permission.
Even if Vierra could figure out a way to escape, her daughter Zaina is a Saudi citizen, so they couldn’t leave together unless her ex-husband granted permission.
“She is completely stuck,” her cousin, Nicole Carroll, told the Times. “She is out of options.”
Saudi Arabia’s male-guardianship tradition is based on a rigid, traditional view of the sexes. Here’s what you need to know about the system.
How does the system work?
Under the so-called guardianship system, all Saudi women must have a male “guardian”—a father, uncle, husband, brother or son—whose permission they need to obtain passports, undergo certain medical procedures, enroll in school, and open a savings account, among other basic needs.
“The Saudi state essentially treats women as permanent legal minors,” Human Rights Watch explains.
According to the The New York Times, men can even track a Saudi woman’s travel through an app, and register to receive a text when they pass through an airport.
“It’s a long struggle, and a long road to serious equality,” Madawi al-Rasheed, a Saudi anthropologist at the London School of Economics, told the newspaper in June.
What have Saudi leaders said about it?
In June, Saudi Arabia’s ban on female drivers was lifted and, seven months later, women attended a soccer game at a public stadium for the first time. But when Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was asked about guardianship in a recent interview with The Atlantic, he said he wanted to “figure out a way to treat this that doesn’t harm families and doesn’t harm the culture.”
Reuters reports that Saudi public prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb said his office would “spare no efforts in protecting individuals, whether women, children or parents, from unfair treatment by those who abuse guardianship powers,” according to English-language daily Saudi Gazette.
Saud al-Mojeb added that his office receives only a small number of complaints about guardianship, but didn’t provide further details, according to the outlet.
Is there anything being done to change it?
According to The New York Times, Saudi Arabia ratified the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, including the guardianship system, in 2000. But many Saudi women are still unable to make major life decisions for themselves. In recent years, a growing protest movement using the hashtag #IAmMyOwnGuardian has sought to end the system.
In 2016, thousands of Saudis signed a petition calling for the government to abolish the tradition. “Women should be treated as a full citizen,” activist Aziza Al-Yousef told The Guardian. “This is not only a women’s issue, this is also putting pressure on normal men … this is not an issue for women only.”
In February 2018, United Nations experts expressed concern that “the failure to adopt a specific law prohibiting discrimination against women, and the absence of a legal definition of discrimination against women in line with the Convention, which in a country with strong customs and traditions, was a point of concern. The ‘mahram’ system, or the system of male guardianship, was the key obstacle to women’s participation in society and economy, Experts remarked and asked about concrete steps taken to end this system.”
Human Rights Watch, which released a shocking report on the system in 2016, has a dedicated page on their website for the issue, calling for Saudi officials to “seize this opportunity to end all government-enforced male guardianship permission requirements and enact anti-discrimination legislation that would prohibit anyone from requiring women to obtain guardian permission.”
HRW also encourages people to tweet at Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to experess their concern.
In February 2019, Reuters reported that Saudia Arabia has begun studying how the male guardianship system is being abused.
What will happen to Vierra?
“She has no recourse,” Carroll said of her cousin. “Everyone keeps asking: ‘What next? What next?’ But there is no what next.”
The State Department’s consular information page notes that non-Saudi women need a male guardian’s permission to depart the country and “if a foreigner and a Saudi living in Saudi Arabia divorce, Saudi courts rarely grant permission for the foreign parent to leave the country with the children born during the marriage.”
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