© AFP 2016/ FAYEZ NURELDINE
Human Rights Watch reported Saturday that women's rights activists in the kingdom initiated a Twitter campaign to support the move, trending such hashtags as #StopEnslavingSaudiWomen, #IAmMyOwnGuardian and #TogetherToEndMaleGuardianship. Additionally, activists used social media to spread instructions on how to submit a telegram calling on the king to comply with their demands.
The petition says that Saudi women, who are being treated as legal minors based on an interpretation of the Quran, must have the right to move freely around the country and abroad, as well as make important decisions regarding their own lives, without asking a man's permission.
"In every aspect, the important issue is to treat a woman as a full citizen," Saudi human rights campaigner Aziza Yousef told BBC.
Currently, women in Saudi Arabia are required to obtain approval from a male relative to make decisions regarding such daily social issues as medical treatment and employment. Before marriage it is usually a woman's father who exerts control. After the ceremony is completed responsibility is administered by the husband.
Such restrictions "impose physical and emotional burdens" on women, the petition reads. Those who signed demand the designation of a threshold age of 18-21, above which women are legally full-fledged adult citizens free to travel, study or work, without requiring the permission of a male guardian.
Sheik Abdulaziz al-Sheik condemned the request, calling the Twitter campaign anti-Islamic, and declaring that such actions threaten the wellbeing of Saudi society.
"This is an evil call that goes against the sharia and the instructions of the prophet," he blustered, cited by Middle East Eye.
Though Saudi UN representatives have pledged to the UN Human Rights Commission that the system will be dismantled, nothing has been done.
The unprecedented petition is the result of a social media campaign which began after Human Rights Watch published a report in July condemning the male guardianship system as a violation of human rights. No response to the petition has been recorded.
democratic movement that will have 'unanticipated' side effects. Think for a moment. Like in India and other ancient civilizations, women made a pact with the devil in being a political pawn in marriage, etc. But look hard at the result in the world. If women are political pawns in their own right, then how have we done?
Well, we get elected BUT our independent opinions are the subsumed into the larger political body. Nancy Pelosi knew what mercury was before she went to Washington and had a lobotomy. She is an example of 'freeing' the woman locally only to have her 'owned' in the larger sphere.
Equality in pay for women? Take a seat. Child care for that preschooler? Be prepared to take 6 years off your job.
But the greatest lie is in the narrowed economic realm, the money. Divorce takes and never gives. Divorcing with children has only one outcome, a lowering of class/statue/position in society because it is still a man's world and women's power is only ASSIGNED, NEVER A RIGHT.
Consider why this big push for 'equality for women' in India, Middle East and Africa. In a man's world, a women with assets in her own right is choosing to walk down an unlit street at midnight. It clearly is a means for the larger economic world to get control of a 'freed' woman's assets. It is an important step in breaking the countries control of assets via the marriage route which maintains the assets for generations. The drum beat for women's 'freedom' is merely the insistence of the conquering army's leader forcing the subdued king to open the treasure chest of the kingdom at sword point.