Ignorance of Rights

Although national and international law guarantees women’s rights, women are often ignorant of their rights and existing systems, which prevents them from demanding their rights.

Every individual, whether male or female, should be acquainted with the general principles of law for the protection of his/her rights. Know­ledge of the laws issued are spread via mass media. Hence, ignorance of laws does not exempt the individual from legal responsibility. Thus every woman should be aware of the systems that organise her rights in all fields such as education, work and justice.

The main problem is ignorance of the law and lack of development of the legal culture. This knowledge is close to zero. Interviews showed that 90 per cent of women have no knowledge of CEDAW. The average Saudi woman does not know the mechanisms supporting women’s rights and how women can obtain these rights. In addition, the women do not deal with the various systems because they lack the knowledge and/or ability to defend or demand their rights as decided by the law.

The most important causes beyond the immediate problems include the following:

• Dominance of habits and traditions inherited from the society: these prevent women from demanding their rights because they think that these traditions must be not be violated, even if they appear to contradict Islamic law.

• Scarcity of awareness in mass media: the viewers who watch the mass media feel that the issue of women’s rights has been put aside.

• Weakness of women’s nature if compared with that of men in some societies, because the guardians exploit the weakness of the women in order to prevent them from demanding their rights. In addition, some women prefer silence to demanding their rights, in order not to incur greater problems.

I therefore suggest the following to deal with the problem:

1. Make systematic and national regulations for women’s rights in order that these may be a reference for governmental and national authorities in dealing with women’s issues.

2. Create or nominate an effective mechanism for deciding women’s rights to enable the women and each individual to perform the role assigned in life making.

3. Examine academic curricula and consider the addition of issues relating to the women in order to make them aware of their legislative rights. This is especially needed in the intermediate and secondary syllabus, as is the teaching of compulsory law materials within university specialisations.

4. Increase awareness of women’s rights by using visual and audio mass media and presenting special programmes about women on television channels and radio programmes to spread knowledge of the issues relating to women’s affairs.

5. Create training courses in schools and training centres to spread knowledge of women’s rights and methods of dealing with the problems facing them.

V.