Catherine MacKinnon famously asked "are women human" in the eyes of the law and society. In Saudi Arabia, judging by reports from Human Rights Watch, the answer seems to be that women are human ... but children. Don't let them out without a minder and don't, don't let them out of the country without dear papa's permission, even if the girl-child is over 21.
The treatment of Nazia Quazi - a 21 year old person with Canadian/Indian dual nationality - illustrates the ways that law constructs identities, questions about jurisdiction and the problematical commitment of Saudi Arabia to implementing human rights agreements.
Ms Quazi reportedly entered Saudi Arabia in 2007 with her parents. She gained access to the land of sand, sun, oil and judicial rigour (nothing like a public stoning, beheading, lashing or amputation of a limb to liven up the day) using a visitor's visa. Nothing particularly unusual there: lots of countries, including Australia, manage access with a visa system.
In Saudi Arabia foreign visitors need a local sponsor. Unfortunately for Ms Quazi, her sponsor was her dad, who is also her mahram (guardian), the male relative who in Saudi law controls nearly every moment of a woman's life. While all unhappy families are the same, with apologies to Mr Tolstoy (whose yearning for purity and problematical performance might have fitted in with contemporary Wahabism), the Quazis were special. Dad is reported to have clandestinely switched Ms Quazi's temporary visitor's visa to a more permanent visa, one requiring him, as her sponsor, approve her exit. He has apparently refused to provide the approval, on the basis that he disapproves of her boyfriend. But wait, there's more, as they say on commercial television.
Ms Quazi has reportedly indicated that dad confiscated her passports (in both the Indian and Canadian flavour), along with her identity documents such as a health card and driver's license. That removal of identity - who are you if you lack the necessary paperwork - resonates with the legal status on women in Saudi Arabia. They aren't slaves (chattels that can be readily traded). However, in terms of law they are children, as noted in a 2008 HRW report. They lack autonomy. Many appear to be treated with the same contempt or non-recognition apparent in dealings with Asian guestworkers highlighted in another 2008 HRW report.
Despite indications to the contrary by the Saudi government, the mahram regime means that women need the mahram's permission to marry, rent an apartment, go to school, travel overseas, open a bank account or hold a job. So much for format ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) - assigning all women the status of a child is a fundamental form of discrimination.
Disappearance of a passport and other paperwork always poses problems for embassies. That is understandable; few people would want a government representative to blithely hand over a passport simply on the basis of an applicant's promise not to tell fibs.
In the Quazi case it appears that the Canadian embassy, albeit after some prompting by NGOs and media in Canada and the US, has agreed to provide a replacement passport. To get out of Saudi Arabia Ms Quazi still needs an exit visa, ie authorisation by the Saudi government rather than by the Canadians. The latter, aware of the Westphalian principle, have been reluctant to monster the Saudis to provide the visa. The Indian government appears to be treating the matter as an family dispute, something to be solved by the disputants and under local law.
HRW indicates that when Ms Quazi approached the Saudi Human Rights Commission she was reportedly told "your father is doing all this for your own security, just respect that". Respect for the guardian is one thing, confinement is another.
The report follows on disagreement about whether a fractious female student (variously reported as 13 or 20) has been sentenced to 60 lashes after a scuffle with a teacher over possession of a mobile phone and accounts of a 75 year old woman being sentenced to 40 lashes (plus a prison sentence then deportation), consistent with the case report 'Recent Cases: General Court of Qatif Sentences Gang-Rape Victim to Prison and Lashings for Violating Illegal Mingling Law' in 121 Harvard Law Review (2008) 2254-2261.
It has been claimed - for example by Sam Souryal in 'The Religionization of a Society: The Continuing Application of Shariah Law in Saudi Arabia', 26(4) Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (1987), 429-449 - that strict adherence to traditional law (much of which, arguably, wasn't in use within the major centres of Saudi Arabia prior to the 1920s) is associated with lower crime rates relative to other countries. We might ask whether abuses offset the benefits of less crime'. Aharon Layish in 'Saudi Arabian Legal Reform as a Mechanism to Moderate Wahhābī Doctrine', 107(2) Journal of the American Oriental Society (1987), 279-292 is arguably over-optimistic about the shape of law reform.
