In Saudi Arabia, women have to endure a series of restrictions dictated by a limiting system of ‘male guardianship’. This greatly restricts the rights they enjoy and demonstrates profound discrimination against them. Since 2018, however, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has initiated a series of reforms that were supposed to give women more freedom and put an end to the ‘guardianship’ system. This would have allowed many women to be freer, autonomous, and to carry out certain activities that they were previously precluded from doing. Actually, none of these much-touted reforms had the expected effect.
The first major reform was the one that allowed Saudi women to drive for the first time. Until then, in fact, this activity was totally precluded. In addition to this, a series of reforms in the following years expanded the possibility for women to travel freely without the permission of a ‘guardian’. In 2022, the Saudi government introduced the Personal Status Law. The latter was presented as the reform that would mark the end of the male guardianship system. The truth, however, is that this reform only gave women freedom in some respects. For example, women are now allowed to access healthcare, education, and work without the permission of a male guardian. In other areas, however, guardianship remains firmly in place. Therefore, despite the fact that this reform was presented as a great step forward, restrictions still prevail in the lives of Saudi women.
The controversial aspect of these reforms can also be seen in the treatment that many women activists have suffered in recent years. One example is the al-Otaibi sisters, who have always fought for women’s rights and continue to suffer terrible persecution by the Saudi authorities. One of them, Manahel, is currently a victim of enforced disappearance. Another example is Loujain al-Hathloul, against whom the authorities continue to place restrictions despite the fact that she has already served a sentence.
However, there is another tool in Saudi Arabia that the regime uses to control and punish women. These are the so-called ‘care homes’, or Dar al-Raya. Created in the 1960s, these homes are actual detention centres where women accused of disobeying their guardians are sent. Without the latter’s consent, they are not allowed to leave these centres. The Saudi government defines them as places where women accused of a crime are offered appropriate support so that they can then be ‘returned to their families’. This shows how, despite much-vaunted reforms, women in Saudi Arabia still face abuse and can risk detention in one of these centres if they “disobey” their guardian.
The treatments to which the women who are sent to these centres are subjected are terrible. According to a series of testimonies collected by the Guardian, they are subjected to strip searches and virginity tests the moment they arrive at the “care homes”. In the centres, they lose their name and are called by a number. If they tell their companions their name, they are punished with lashes. This punishment is also used when they are found alone with another woman or when they do not pray.
Some women are sent to these centres after being abused by members of their families. If, for example, a woman is sexually abused by her father or brother, she is sent to a Dar al-Reaya to protect the honour of the family and not to be protected herself. One girl told of being sent to a ‘care home’ after reporting to the police the abuse her father and brothers had carried out on her. The latter accused her of bringing dishonour to the family, and the father only let her out of the centre after a long period of time, despite the fact that he was the abuser.
There are many other testimonies concerning what happens inside these ‘care homes’ and they all have to do with abuse and false accusations against innocent women. The Dar al-Reaya are not centres where women are helped, but places where they are humiliated and further deprived of their rights. They are the representation of a system that has not deviated from the usual traditions and that leaves the ‘male guardian’ as the figure around whom women’s lives are conducted. Those who are sent to these places are abandoned and left alone. They receive no help and have no way of leaving the centres in which they are detained.
What happens inside the ‘care homes’ once again highlights the controversial reforms Saudi Arabia has carried out to advance women’s rights. If these were real reforms, the government would have to abolish these centres altogether. Furthermore, it should take cases of abuse more seriously and not see the complaints made by many women as a way of bringing shame on the family. In the face of all this, then, the reforms that are presented as progressive are just empty means that Saudi Arabia uses to showcase nonexistent progress. It is therefore important to continue to speak out about the abuses that many women continue to suffer in the country in order for the country to be held accountable for the change that must take place.