SAUDI ARABIA:

COUNTRY ALALYSIS
BY ARJANVEER SAINI
HUMAN RIGHTS GOING WELL
After enough researching, I would say Saudi Arabia
has made progress in certain areas of human rights in
recent times. For instance, the country has increased
women's participation in the workforce, which in turn
allows them to have more economic freedom than
they did before and not just rely on their husbands’
income. They also allow them to drive now, which is a
big step towards gender equality. Additionally, the
government has taken enough steps to improve the
education system, especially with the strategic
framework of Vision 2030 of its, which is an important
factor in ensuring the right to education. Finally, it has
also taken measures to improve its healthcare system,
ensuring the right to adequate healthcare for its
citizens.
 THE SPECIFIC ARTICLES FROM THE
UDHR BEING MET

From the examples mentioned earlier, it can be established that the specific articles from
the UDHR that are being met are those of:

\ RESULT
 BETTER TREATMENT OF WOMEN
How exactly the treatment of women in Saudi has gotten better lately

According to a study some years back, women now represent 30% of the total Saudi work force in the private sector, up from just 12% in 2011.

In the first seven months of 2017 alone, over 500,000 Saudi women entered the labor market across both public and private sectors, according to figures released by
the General Organization Social Insurance. While in November 2017, a new transportation program, Wusool, set up specifically for working women, saw over 3,100
registrations in its first three weeks from Saudi women employed in the private sector.

The majority of private sector jobs for women are in the retail, hospitality, and construction sectors. The first two sectors in particular have been the focus of major
government Saudization and feminization campaigns aimed at encouraging women to enter the workforce.

According to the Ministry of Labor’s statistics, the number of women working in retail has seen a particularly large increase, rising 12-fold from about 10,000 in 2010 to
122,000 in 2014. This followed a decision in 2011 by the Ministry of Labor that shops specializing in cosmetics and women’s clothing, together with the women’s
sections of department stores, should employ all-female Saudi Arabian sales staff.

The first Saudi Arabian female lawyers were also granted their practicing certificates in late 2013.

Additionally, Saudi Arabia also managed to surprise the world in the year of 2018 with a long-overdue royal decree: Women would finally be granted Saudi driver’s
licenses in June 2018, ending the kingdom’s infamous de facto ban on female drivers.

It was a major step forward, perhaps even a giant leap, for Saudi society. It was considered a sign that modernizers may hold sway over the conservatives in the
kingdom’s culture wars, and of what brave, female-led protests can achieve.

IMPROVEMENTS IN THE FIELD OF
HEALTHCARE AND EDUCATION
In recent times, there've been some much
needed improvements in these fields as well
When Vision 2030 was announced by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al
Saud in 2016, the long-term goals for the sector included raising standards, shifting education
spending to the private sector and helping at least five Saudi institutions break into the top-
100 universities in the world. The $72bn National Transformation Programme (NTP), which
runs from 2016 to 2020 and is the first phase of Vision 2030, has also set targets for the
education sector. These cover a range of areas, such as raising attainment levels in maths
and English by 15%, increasing pre-primary enrolment rates from 13% to 27.2%, achieving an
adult literacy rate of 97.5% and increasing private school enrolment rates from 6% to 15%.
The fact that in recent years the education sector has consistently received the largest share
of public spending establishes Saudi has certainly tried everything in its power to bring some
necessary changes in the country's education. In 2020, the government allocated SR193bn
($51.5bn), or 18.9% of the total budget, to education. This figure remains unchanged from
2019, although that year it represented 17.5% of the budget. In 2019 education spending
equalled 6.2% of GDP. Although this is a decline from roughly 10% in 2013, as the government
has increasingly sought to boost private sector involvement in recent years, it is still in line
with the OECD average of 6.3%.
Health care in Saudi Arabia is a national health care system in which the government provides
free universal healthcare coverage through a number of government agencies. There is also a
growing role and increased participation from the private sector in the provision of health care
services. You know a country's doing well with its healthcare facilities when it has been
ranked among the 26 best countries in providing high quality healthcare.
Saudi Arabia has a mixed public and private healthcare system, both providing good quality
services. Furthermore, around 60% of services are publicly provided through the government’s
Ministry of Health. These consist of:
Primary health care centers
Hospitals
Specialist services
Outpatient services
 HUMAN RIGHTS NEEDING
IMPROVEMENTS

Despite the progress that’s been made, Saudi Arabia still faces significant human rights violations. One major
area of concern is the lack of political freedom, or in other words, freedom of speech. The government heavily
restricts dissent and criticism and makes sure that it censors opinions in the form of articles or journals that
oppose the government’s. This essentially leads to violations of Article 19 (freedom of opinion and expression)
and Article 21 (right to democracy). Another such area of concern is the treatment of women, who face
discrimination in many areas of life, such as marriage, divorce, and travel. The guardianship system, which
requires women to seek permission from a male guardian to do many things, remains in place, and women who
speak out against the government or their treatment can face imprisonment and other consequences. This
violates Article 16 (right to marry and have family) and Article 13 (right to movement and residence).
MORE ON THE SPECIFIC ARTICLES
FROM THE UDHR NOT BEING MET
 INCIDENCES WHERE ARTICLE 19 (FREEDOM OF
OPINION AND EXPRESSION) IS VIOLATED
Authorities conducted arrests of peaceful dissidents, public intellectuals, and human rights activists and sentenced people to
decades-long prison terms for posting on social media. Abusive practices in detention centers, including torture and mistreatment,
prolonged arbitrary detention, and asset confiscation without any clear legal process, remain pervasive.

Dozens of Saudi human rights defenders and activists continued to serve long prison sentences for criticizing authorities or
advocating for political and rights reforms. Blogger, activist, and 2015 Sakharov Prize winner Raif Badawi remains under a travel
ban despite completing his unjust 10-year prison sentence in March.

Women’s rights defenders including Loujain al-Hathloul, Nassimah al-Sadah, and Samar Badawi also remain banned from travel and
under suspended prison sentences, allowing the authorities to return them to prison for any perceived criminal activity. Human
rights activist Mohammed al-Rabea, aid worker Abdulrahman al-Sadhan, and human rights lawyer Waleed Abu al-Khair remained in
prison on charges that relate to peaceful expression or activism.

Saudi authorities increasingly target Saudi and non-Saudi social media users for peaceful expression online and punish them with
decades-long sentences. On August 9, an appeals court sentenced Salma al-Shehab, a Saudi doctoral student at the University of
Leeds in the United Kingdom, to 34 years in prison for “disrupt[ing] the order and fabric of society,” apparently based solely on her
Twitter activity. That same day, Saudi courts sentenced Nourah bin Saeed al-Qahtani to a lengthy 45 years in prison for “using the
internet to tear the [country’s] social fabric.”

 CONTINUED
In September, Saudi prosecutors summoned US citizen Carly Morris for “disrupt[tion] of the
public order,” seemingly in connection to an ongoing investigation into her social media
activity. In April, Morris published a series of tweets about her inability to travel outside
Saudi Arabia with her eight-year-old daughter and access important documents for her.

Dual US-Saudi citizen Salah al-Haidar, detained between May 2019 and February 2021,
remains on trial on charges related to his peaceful criticism of the Saudi government on
social media.

The Saudi government is notorious for repressing public dissent and has a well-established
record of attempting to infiltrate technology platforms and use advanced cyber
surveillance technology to spy on dissidents (which apparently happens to be a violation of
Article 12- Right To Privacy as well).
 HOW ARTICLE 21 (RIGHT TO
DEMOCRACY) IS NOT MET IN
SAUDI ARABIA
Saudi Arabia does not have a written constitution or an elected legislative body. There are no elections of any kind. All political parties are
banned, as are most forms of association. All critical political expression is forbidden. The press is strictly regulated, and assembly is severely
restricted. This, therefore, is a clear violation of Article 21.

In theory, the legal system is based on Shari`a (Islamic law). However, secular legislation is frequently proposed by the Council of Ministers. It
becomes law after it is ratified by royal decree (marsoom). The king can directly issue a royal order (amr) which in practice has the same weight
as a decree. Senior ministers also have broad authority to enact legislation. Secular courts specialize in commercial and labor disputes and
interpret government-issued secular laws. But most courts are based on the strict Hanbali school of Shari`a law. There are no codified laws; the
courts rely mostly on commentaries written in the Middle Ages, especially by the thirteen-century jurist, Ibn Taimiyya.

Frequently, the government bypasses the court system altogether, disposing of suspects either by administrative action or by forming closed-
door summary tribunals to try them. In 1980, for example, then-King Khaled ordered the execution, without any judicial proceeding, of sixty-three
suspects captured by government troops after bloody clashes with a radical Islamic group in which more than two hundred government forces
BY CLAUDIA ALVES Thesis Defense Presentation Template
were killed. While executions without trial are exceptional, lesser administrative sentences are common, including lengthy prison terms and
flogging.
 INCIDENCES WHERE ARTICLE 16 (RIGHTS TO MARRY AND
HAVE FAMILY) IS VIOLATED

Despite some reforms, authorities continue to implement a male guardianship system

requiring women to obtain male guardian permission to get married, leave prison, or
obtain some forms of sexual and reproductive healthcare. Husbands reportedly can
withhold consent if a woman seeks higher education abroad.

In March, Saudi lawmakers passed the country’s first codified personal status law.
However, despite Saudi authorities’ promises for a “comprehensive” and
“progressive” personal status law, the law entrenches discriminatory provisions on
women in marriage, divorce, inheritance, and decisions relating to children. Rather
than dismantling it, the law instead codifies male guardianship and sets out
provisions that can facilitate and excuse domestic violence including sexual abuse in
marriage.

Women are required to have their male guardian’s permission in order to marry.
Once married, women are required to then obey their husbands in a “reasonable
manner.” Articles 42 and 55 together state a husband’s financial support is
specifically made contingent on a wife’s “obedience” to the husband, and she can
lose her right to such support if she refuses without a “legitimate excuse” to have sex
with him, move to or live in the marital home, or travel with him. Article 42(3) states
that neither spouse may abstain from sexual relations or cohabitation with the other
without the other spouse’s consent, implying a marital right to intercourse.
 Article 9 declares the legal age of marriage as 18 but allows
courts to authorize the marriage of a child under 18 if they have
reached puberty and if it can be proved that the marriage

CONTINUED
provides an “established benefit” to the child.

While men can unilaterally divorce women, women can only

petition a court to dissolve their marriage contract on limited
grounds and must “establish harm” as a prerequisite. The law
does not specify what constitutes “harm” or what evidence can
be submitted to support a case, leaving room for judges’
discretion in interpretation and enforcement.

Elements of the male guardianship system that remain in

practice can prevent a divorced woman from financial
independence. For example, a man can funnel post-divorce
financial support payments to his ex-wife through her male
relative if she lives with her family post-divorce, denying her
direct access to the payments.

Under the Saudi Personal Status Law, fathers are the default
guardians of their children. Even if the authorities order the
children to live with their mothers, women have limited authority
over their children’s lives and cannot act as guardians of
children unless a court appoints them. The 2016 and 2019 legal
amendments allowing mothers with primary custody of their
children to apply for passports, provide travel permission, and
obtain important documents for their children without a male
guardian are seemingly inconsistently applied.
raph text
 TARGETS FOR
IMPROVEMENTS
I feel the need of Saudi Arabia focusing on improving the treatment of women, particularly when it comes to their
ability to exercise their rights in practice, which is pretty limited. My reasoning for including this is because even
after all the steps the country has taken, the women of Saudi Arabia still must deal with some important problems
in their day-to-day lives. This violates their human rights, and improving on the way they treat women is essential
to ensure that they reach gender equality sometime in future, so that every person, regardless of the gender they
associate with, can participate fully in society.

The government also needs to work to protect the rights of its large population of migrant workers, who more than
often face exploitative working conditions and abuse. Migrant workers may have limited legal protections and in
some cases, may not even have access to basic human rights such as healthcare and education. They may also
be subject to deportation if they speak out against their employers. Protecting the rights of those workers is
necessary for them to not be exploited, and to be treated with dignity and respect like everyone else.

Along with that, the country should work to expand political freedom and protect freedom of speech, which are
critical for promoting democracy. As for democracy, it’s very limited in Saudi Arabia. They also need to ensure the
often violated human rights of citizens who should at least have the right to participate in government and express
their opinions freely. The country's justice system is flawed and has been criticized for being opaque and
sometimes relying on confessions obtained through torture.
 HOW MIGRANT WORKERS ARE EXPLOITED

Migrant workers routinely report abuse and exploitation. Authorities continue to impose one of the most restrictive and abusive kafala (visa sponsorship)
systems in the region, which despite recent reforms remains largely unchanged. It gives employers excessive power over migrant workers’ mobility and legal
status in the country and underpins their vulnerability to a wide range of abuses—from passport confiscation to delayed wages—which can amount to forced
labor.

In January, Human Rights Watch reported on the horrific detention conditions of thousands of ethnic Tigrayan people deported between December 2020 and
September 2021 from Saudi Arabia to Ethiopia. Interviewees uniformly described horrendous conditions in formal and informal detention centers in the Saudi
Arabian cities of Abha, Hadda, Jizan, and Jeddah. They described severely cramped, unsanitary detention conditions and physical abuse by guards. Upon
return to Ethiopia, deportees were arbitrarily arrested, mistreated, and forcibly disappeared.

The BBC reported on Kenyan domestic worker Diana Chepkemoi, 24, who returned from Saudi Arabia to Kenya in September and said her employer told her
she was "bought" and that "anything" could be done to her. The Kenyan foreign ministry reported that 89 Kenyans—more than half of them female domestic
workers—died in Saudi Arabia between 2020 and 2021 under suspicious circumstances. In most cases, Saudi authorities identified the cause of death as non-
work related and failed to investigate further.

Saudi Arabia’s economy relies heavily on migrant workers. Over 6.3 million migrants fill mostly manual, clerical, and service jobs in Saudi Arabia, constituting
more than 80 percent of the private sector workforce. Saudi Arabia carries out regular arrests and deportations of undocumented migrant workers, including
major arrest campaigns in November 2013 and August 2017. Many workers become undocumented through no fault of their own because employers can report
migrant workers, sometimes falsely, for “absconding” or when they flee abuse. Migrants are denied the right to contest their detention and deportation.
OVERALL ASSESMENT
Saudi Arabia has both positive and negative aspects when
it comes to the treatment of its citizens and respect for
human rights. While Saudi Arabia has indeed made some
progress in recent years, particularly in the areas of
education and healthcare, there’s still a lot of human rights
violations in the country, especially when it comes to
political freedom, freedom of speech, and the treatment of
women. The government needs to take more steps to
address these issues so that it protects the human rights of
all citizens. For that very reason, I would give Saudi Arabia
a grade of C. These issues raise ethical dilemmas about the
treatment of individuals and the government's responsibility
to ensure that human rights are respected. Overall, I am
certain that progress’s been made but there’s some really
big room for improvement as well.