Afghan Journal

Saudi Arabia spot on UN women agency triggers outcry

Sanjeev Miglani

Nov 14, 2010 13:09 UTC

The United Nations has set up a new super agency to better fight for the rights of women around the world including Afghanistan. This week UN Women, as the new body is called, held elections to choose countries to sit on the board and the results have triggered a storm of criticism even before the new agency formally comes into being next January. Both Iran and Saudi Arabia were in the running for a seat, and while Iran got displaced at the last minute in the vote, the Saudis are through.

And that has provoked the wrath of rights activists and commentators.  The idea of the conservative desert kingdom, where women cannot drive or take significant decisions without the permission of a male  relative or work as supermarket cashiers, leading a global fight for the promotion of women’s rights is hard to accept, they say. How can you take the UN seriously, asks Greg Scoblete in a short piece on  Real Clear World’s Compass blog headlined  : Saudi Arabia bastion for women’s rights.

When the results of the vote were announced, the United States warmly welcomed the defeat of Iran, saying it would have been an inauspicious start to the board, had  they won. But what about the Saudis, asks Ami Horowitz, a documentary film-maker, in an article in The Huffington Post. How can Washington or the UN justify their leadership of a high-powered body set up to promote gender equality and empower women.

Horowitz proceeds to list cases reflecting the plight of women in Saudi Arabia including the most famous  case of  “The Girl of Qatif.”. This refers to a 2007 verdict in which a 19-year-old woman from the town of Qatif was sentenced to 200 lashes of the whip after she was gang-raped by seven men. The court blamed her for being alone with an  unrelated man. The rapists were handed sentences ranging from two years to nine years in jail. The woman was later pardoned which commentators said at the time was the result of an international outcry over the judgement.

On Afghan planes, women are “not able-bodied”

I was recently on a flight back from the western Afghan city of Herat. I was with a female friend, an American consultant who was in Herat compiling field research on civilian casualties. There was a ‘free seats’ policy on the Pamir Airways flight so my friend and I went to the first available empty row, which happened to be the exit row in the middle of the plane.

(REUTERS/Ahmad Masood)

As we went to sit down a clean-shaven flight attendant who looked like he was in his twenties told us we had to sit elsewhere. I asked why and he said “It’s for men only, no women, please sit here,” pointing to the next row behind. My friend and I looked at each other with disbelief. We both asked him again, why we couldn’t sit there and why being women prevented us from sitting there. Without any hesitation he said: “It’s for men and able bodied people only.” We were shocked.