This week, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia announced its plans to issue official passports for millions of its resident camels. They claimed this act to be necessary in improving the ‘productivity and efficiency’ of one of the Kingdom’s most significant sectors, to protect owners’ rights.
This is major progress for camels, as they have historically been essential to Saudi society, whether that be as a means of transport or a symbol of Saudi culture and heritage. Furthermore, the issuing of passports to all estimated two million Saudi camels aims to regulate the popular camel beauty contests, where the most beautiful camels can win large lumps of prize money. Passports allow for correct implementation of competition rules, allowing offenders (camels that undergo cosmetic manipulation to enhance their beauty, ie. lip fillers) to be punished accordingly.
This historic moment comes just six years after Saudi women were granted the right to apply for a passport. Up until 2019, women were only able to obtain a passport if their male guardian applied for their passport. This restricted millions of women, stripping them of independence and fundamental rights. Alongside this newly implemented progressive law, women over the age of 21 were now also allowed, for the first time in Saudi modern history, to travel without a male guardian. Saudi officials pushed this amendment to the Travel Document Law as a major step in the path to women’s liberation. Fortunately, the camels are not being left behind.
Unlike women, however, who are legally allowed to travel without a male guardian, camels unfortunately must be accompanied by their owner. Upon a further inspection into Saudi law on women’s rights, however, it is apparent that women do not receive much more freedom than the camels. Under the Personal Status Law, women are legally owned by their male guardian, similarly to a camel. Under Saudi law, it is punishable as a crime for a woman to disobey their male guardian, under any circumstance. That renders the new travel law useless for many women, many of whom will never be granted permission to obtain a passport or travel without their male guardian.
In 2016, a Saudi human rights defender, Manahel al-Otaibi, was arrested under this law, after filing an official report against her brother for physical abuse despite her father forbidding her from doing so. This prompted her father to file an official report against his daughter for disobeying him, for which she was prosecuted under article 42. Her brother was never charged, nor was her report investigated. One wonders if a camel would have received more lenient treatment.
Women are not camels. Saudi women have fundamental human rights, protected under international law, that must be respected by the Saudi government. Whitewashing the atrocious situation of women’s rights in the Kingdom, through the implementation of fake progressive reforms is unacceptable. Women being granted the same rights – or in some cases, inferior rights – as camels is simply abhorrent. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia must immediately implement legislation to grant full freedom of movement to Saudi women. Restricting a woman’s right to travel puts countless numbers of women in dangerous situations, where they are stuck under the thumb of abusive guardians. Women must have the right to remove themselves from harmful situations. For this, the Saudi government must abolish the male guardianship system. The fundamental human right to live a life in freedom and safety is enshrined into international human rights law, for all, including women.