Social media has become a setting for all sorts of issues. These days it is one of the easiest ways to get your story heard. Saudi women from all over the country have been tweeting for the freedom to be their own guardians. Women have been shielding their identities to speak up against the male-dominated country of Saudi Arabia by tweeting and thousands of other women have joined the campaign to put social pressures on the Saudi Arabian government. CNN spoke with some of these women. Many were talked with and some of their realities were shared:
“I’m a dead soul in a living body and I hope that doesn’t happen to my little sister.”
“Slavery comes in many shapes and forms: Male guardianship is one.”
“I’m a prisoner and my crime is that I’m a Saudi woman.”
“Women here are trapped, they can’t do anything. It depends on your guardian, if he is OK, and if he is a good man he’ll let you work, or let you study, which is a basic right. If he’s not, he’s going to prevent you from that.”
CNN also reached out to Saudi’s government for a comment and received no response. These women along with many others are tired of being owned by their male guardians. They want more for themselves and future women family members, so they are tweeting.
Currently in Saudi Arabia, women can’t do many things without the permission from a male relative, sometimes even their own son they carried for nine months. Women can’t make decisions about work, travel or marriage without permission. They also cannot make any kind of police complaint without it being signed off by a man. The issue has become so controversial that two accounts on Twitter have been deactivated twice. The accounts @IHWCo and @SafeMov have both used the hashtag #StopEnslavingSaudiWomen in order to bring light to Saudi women’s stories. Both have been reactivated, but no one knows when they will deactivated for good.
Members of the Saudi Royal Family currently own more shares of Twitter than the co-founder of the company. Specifically, Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal is Twitter’s second largest shareholder since he increased his holdings in 2015. Could this be a reason why accounts trying to help Saudi Women keep getting deactivated? It doesn’t take a genius to connect the dots.
Why is this all important? One, to bring light to such a huge issue. Two, to show people how important it is that we never take our rights for granted. Equality between men and women is still an issue in the U.S., but in Saudi Arabia there is a completely different degree of inequality. Women are fighting back. As Americans, we unarguably have better protected rights than many populations across the globe. Considering that privilege we should all be aware of what’s going on in the world. Saudi women are tweeting to get simple stories out there, and we should all listen. To hear more stories like this, follow the accounts up above (when they are active) and do your own research to be educated about how severe this issue is.
Cover Photo Art by @MsSaffaa