RIYADH: The head of the Human Rights Commission (HRC) has said that women's issues “must be heard” and urged mosque imams and sermons to address the topic. According to Al-Hayat Arabic daily, Bandar Al-Aiban told a workshop in Riyadh earlier this week that the HRC was drawing up “plans and programs” to “promote a culture of human rights in all sections and groups of society”. “That includes topics such as women and children's issues,” Al-Aiban said. “There are topics of concern to women that are related to them, and they require greater attention and concern.” He cited families preventing women from getting married, domestic expenses, divorce and marital abuse as issues the HRC is particularly concerned to address. “That's why we've seen at these workshops a very high proportion of women in attendance, and that's to give them the opportunity to voice their various problems. We must listen and show concern for those issues, just as we listen to all sections of society. Despite all the great achievements the Kingdom has made in fields of development and other areas we still must recognize that there are women's issues that merit concern and tackling, and the HRC follows all of them.” He said that the series of workshops, entitled “Human Rights – Reality and Expectations” and which are being held in six cities across the country, sought to “find solutions to those issues and hear women's views”. “We want to involve preachers, imams, Friday sermonizers and university academics more, to throw light on the various aspects of some women's issues,” he said. “Asking for one's rights means that one must first be aware of one's rights, while at the same time one must also be aware of one's duties to society.” The workshops in Riyadh, Jeddah, Buraidah, Sakaka, Abha and Dammam will see the involvement of a range of organizations and government representatives and work towards later producing, Al-Aiban said, a “strategic national plan for human rights”. “It will involve all government bodies,” he said.
