in brief: saudi arabia places new barriers on women’s mobility

Saudi Arabia has introduced a new measure to monitor the mobility of women in that country. Men will now receive a text message from airport security alerting them when their wives leave the country, Al Arabiya News reported last week.

The news spread when Manal al-Sharif – the woman who began a national campaign last year in protest of the 20-year-old ban on female drivers – was alerted to the measure by one man who said he received a text message while travelling with his wife. The message informed him that his wife had left the international airport in Riyadh, the Kingdom’s capital.

Manal al-Sharif used Twitter to spread the word.

While the social networking site has allowed women’s rights activists to communicate their frustrations with each other and the rest of the world, it appears authorities are also being utilising technology to make scrutinising women’s movements easier.

Saudi women are not permitted to travel out of the country unless supervised by their male guardians, or unless they’ve been given permission – a ‘yellow sheet’ to be presented to airport security.

It’s not clear what prompted the new maneuver but there is some speculation that the escape and alleged conversion of a Saudi woman in July is behind the texting-spree. The woman, 30, denied converting to Christianity, but she did admit to leaving the country with the help of an employer, and taking work in a monastery.

Her father sued her employer for allowing her to leave Saudi Arabia without his permission.

The new alerts are sudden and reactionary, even for Saudi Arabia – a country policed by advocates of Sharia Law, writes Al Arabiya News. The country has made significant gains for women’s rights recently.

Last year, women were granted the right to vote and run in the 2015 election for the first time. King Abdullah also appointed Sheikh Abdullatif Abdel Aziz al-Sheikh head of the police department, resulting in a very different (and welcome) ban: police officials will no longer be allowed to harass women for their behaviour or clothing.

However, the texting measure is symptomatic of a much larger, paternalistic structure in the country, writes Bayan Perazzo, a professor of Middle Eastern politics and Islamic studies.