Saudi Arabia's guardianship laws are leaving women stuck in desperate situations, and driving them to risk severe punishment by trying to escape the country.
On Tuesday, it was reported that a US citizen is effectively trapped in Riyadh with her four-year-old daughter. She is stuck in Saudi Arabia a year after she divorced her Saudi husband, because he remains her legal "guardian" and must give her permission to leave.
The woman, Bethany Vierra, is the latest in a sting of cases which illustrate how much control the guardianship system has over women in Saudi Arabia.
Under the Saudi interpretation of Islam, every woman must have a male guardian — usually a husband, but sometimes a brother, or even a son — to make daily decisions for her.
Women need permission to leave the house, go to school, access money they've earned, and travel outside the kingdom. Adult women in Saudi Arabia, therefore, have the same legal rights as children. [Business Insider] Read more
