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Economic necessity is forcing hardline clerics and conservative society in Saudi Arabia to accept the idea of women in the workplace, a government official said in an interview last weekend. Faisal bin Muammar, head of a body promoting national dialogue, said high unemployment among Saudis and the reliance upon seven million foreign workers was forcing the hand of opponents to women working in the desert country of 24 million people.
The debate - as demonstrated at a major forum last month of clerics, ministers and businesswomen - has now moved to whether women can work in the same office space as men, or if firms must provide segregated areas to allow women to work. “Most agreed to open a wide arena for women to get jobs, since girls now graduate more than boys from universities. We cannot go on having seven million foreigners and our graduate women in their houses,” Bin Muammar said. “But how to establish it [is the issue], whether it is in separate or mixed places... We need to make rules for it, which clerics, families and social leaders need.”
Saudi Arabia is one of the most conservative countries in the world, where social values and a powerful clerical establishment impose male guardians on women, segregate them from unrelated men in public areas and ban them from driving. Liberal reformers in government, such as labour minister Ghazi Algosaibi, have sounded alarm bells about living with unemployment, which is officially estimated at 12 per cent but is much higher for women, while millions of foreign workers could one day demand national rights.
Segregation is costing the country money. Thousands of expatriates are employed as drivers for women because of the ban on driving cars. Women at the national dialogue meeting last month - speaking from a separate room so they could be heard but not seen - said firms would have to provide extras such as special transport for them to get to work, given social rules.
One cleric, justice ministry advisor Abdel-Mohsen al-Obaikan, provoked controversy when al-Hayat newspaper quoted him saying there was no sharia ban on women “mixing” with men. He then issued a denial, signalling how sensitive the topic remains in the country. The King Abdulaziz Centre for National Dialogue was set up by King Abdullah in 2003 when he was crown prince. The monarch has demonstrated a policy of promoting moderation in Saudi Arabia’s version of Sunni Islam.
“There is a big programme to moderate the country... It is not because we want to gain other’s satisfaction,” Bin Muammar said. “Saudi Arabia is unique in that since unification most development and changes have been initiated by government and society is sometimes resisting changes.” The Al Saud family governs Saudi Arabia, while sharia clerics legitimise its rule.
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