{"id":3828,"date":"2019-08-21T06:27:31","date_gmt":"2019-08-21T06:27:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/?p=3828"},"modified":"2019-08-21T06:27:31","modified_gmt":"2019-08-21T06:27:31","slug":"saudi-arabia-eases-travel-restrictions-on-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/?p=3828","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Arabia eases travel restrictions on women"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Riyadh, <\/strong>Saudi Arabia began implementing a landmark reform allowing women over the age of 21 to receive passports and travel abroad without permission from a male &#8220;guardian&#8221;, authorities said.<\/p>\n<p>The reform, announced earlier this month, weakens the restrictive guardianship system that has long been a symbol of repression against women.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The passport department has started receiving applications for women aged 21 and above to issue or renew passports and to travel outside the kingdom without permission,&#8221; the department said on Twitter.<\/p>\n<p>Women in the kingdom have long required permission from their male &#8220;guardians&#8221; &#8212; husband, father and other male relatives &#8212; for these tasks, a restriction that drew international censure.<\/p>\n<p>The reform comes after high-profile attempts by women to escape alleged guardianship abuse despite a string of reforms by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, including a landmark decree last year that overturned the world&#8217;s only ban on women drivers.<\/p>\n<p>In other changes unveiled earlier this month, Saudi women were also granted the right to officially register childbirth, marriage or divorce and to be recognised as a guardian to children who are minors &#8212; same as men.<\/p>\n<p>The reforms were widely celebrated in the kingdom, but they also drew backlash from arch-conservatives, many of whom shared old video sermons on social media by Saudi clerics advocating guardianship laws.<\/p>\n<p>Some also denounced the change as &#8220;unIslamic&#8221; in a society that traditionally sees men as protectors of women.<\/p>\n<p>The reform comes as the OPEC petroleum producer reels from low oil prices and seeks to boost employment opportunities for women &#8212; currently facing chronic joblessness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Riyadh, Saudi Arabia began implementing a landmark reform allowing women over the age of 21 to receive passports and travel abroad without permission from a male &#8220;guardian&#8221;, authorities said. The reform, announced earlier this month, weakens the restrictive guardianship system that has long been a symbol of repression against women. &#8220;The passport department has started [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3828","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-international"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3828"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3830,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3828\/revisions\/3830"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}