WHEN Hind Al-Otaibi went to the Riyadh Personal Status Court to have her father struck out as her wali, or guardian, the judges seemed sympathetic. Her father had raped and bruised her, Ms Otaibi, who was a teenager at the time, told the court. He refused to let her travel abroad, even to her mother’s funeral, and when she escaped from home he had persuaded social services to send her back. After consideration, the judges determined last year that her father, an imam from the Saudi interior of Nejd, remained her legal guardian; but that a guardian only had powers to approve his ward’s marriage. If upheld on appeal, the ruling could topple the legal edifice of male control, depriving walis of their power over whether their women can study, work, travel or open bank accounts. “Emancipation from slavery,” says Ms Otaibi.
In recent years, male power over female actions in Saudi Arabia has begun to erode. Under King Abdullah, who died last year, men stopped receiving automatic text messages reporting the coming and going of their women outside the country. (“If I argue with my husband, he can still ground me,” gripes a PR...Continue reading
Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/21VUu3K
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