Saudi Arabia has issued new laws that loosen restrictions on women by allowing any citizen to apply for a passport and travel freely without male consent.
The move is a potential game-changer for Saudi women’s rights in the kingdom.
The legal system was long criticised because it treated women as minors throughout their adult lives, requiring that they have a husband or father’s permission to obtain a passport or travel abroad.
In some cases, the male guardian was a woman’s own son granting her the necessary travel permissions.
Saudi women fleeing domestic abuse and the guardianship system occasionally drew international attention to their plight, being dubbed “runaways” for escaping the kingdom and seeking asylum abroad.
To leave the country, some Saudi women say they had to hack into their father’s phones and change the settings on a government app to allow themselves permission to leave the country.
The new rules, approved by the kingdom’s de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his cabinet, allow any person 21 and older to travel abroad without prior consent and any citizen to apply for a Saudi passport on their own.
The decrees were published before dawn in the kingdom’s official weekly Um al-Qura gazette. It was not immediately clear if the new rules would take effect immediately.
Other changes issued in the decrees allow women to register a marriage, divorce or child’s birth and to be issued official family documents.
The changes were widely celebrated by Saudis on Twitter, but also drew criticism from some conservatives.
Muna Abu Sulayman, a prominent Saudi influencer and a former talk show host, took to Twitter along with thousands of Saudi women to celebrate what many described as a new era.
“A generation growing up completely free and equal to their brothers,” she said, referring to the freedom to travel.
Prince Mohammed has eased social restrictions, such as lifting a driving ban for women last year, as part of a push to open up the conservative Muslim kingdom and transform the economy.
Last year’s murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of Saudi agents caused a global outcry, however, and the Gulf Arab state has been widely criticised for the arrest and alleged torture of nearly a dozen women activists.
Several high-profile cases of young women seeking asylum abroad on claims of gender-based repression have added further pressure on Riyadh over the male guardian system.
Guardianship’s status between law and custom makes it a thorny issue for Prince Mohammed, who indicated last year he favoured ending the system but stopped short of endorsing its annulment.
Other parts of the system remain intact. Women still need permission from a male relative to marry or live on their own.
A hashtag calling for marriage without a guardian’s consent was among the top trending along with a hashtag thanking the crown prince and another touting the new travel rules.
Saudi Arabia ranked 141 of 149 countries in the 2018 Global Gender Gap, a World Economic Forum study on how women fare in economic and political participation, health and education.