Rogaia Soliman Al-Huwairini Al-Jazirah The spokesman of the Passports Department (Jawazat) recently dropped a bombshell. He said in a recent statement that there are no written instructions which prevent Saudi women from traveling without the written consent of their male guardians. He added, moreover, that the only existing regulations are those that prevent people under 21, regardless of their nationality, from traveling abroad without the approval of their parents. The spokesman explained that preventing Saudi women from traveling abroad is left to the discretion of the passport officer at the point of departure from the Kingdom. The officer will evaluate the woman's appearance and age before deciding whether or not to allow her to travel. Therefore, each Saudi woman now has two male guardians: one is their normal guardian (father, husband, brother or son) and the second is the passport officer. I cannot verify the authenticity of these statements, but it is commonly known that Saudi women should have the written consent of their male guardians in order to be allowed to travel. Keeping pace with technological progress, the written consent has become electronic replacing the old yellow piece of paper. If the statements of the Jawazat spokesman are to be believed, it is clear that we have all been deceived men and women alike. We all believed that there was a system preventing Saudi women from traveling without the written consent of a male guardian, while in fact this ban was only imaginary. This state of affairs can equally be applied to the issue of women driving. There is no traffic law preventing women from driving. If a woman is caught driving a car, she will be ticketed for committing the violation of driving without a license. However, the Interior Ministry has recently issued a statement rejecting for security reasons the call for allowing women to drive. It is obvious that it will be many years before Saudi women realize their legitimate rights and until that time they will remain victims of the dictatorship of their male guardians and of ambiguous rules and regulations.
