SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi Women's Move Into Workplace Aids Bid to Diversify Economy

Lama al-Sulaiman, a 43-year-old Saudi Arabian businesswoman, was elected deputy chairman of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry in December.

That might not be news in most places. It was in her country, where al-Sulaiman is the first female to hold such a post in Saudi history.

“With King Abdullah, we are changing so that women can have far more opportunities,” said al-Sulaiman, wearing a black abaya long-sleeved robe and a headscarf, in a 10th-floor conference room overlooking the Red Sea.

The king is pushing to raise women's employment in the world's largest oil exporter, where only 15 percent of the labor force is female. More working women would give Saudi and international companies higher-skilled employees, since almost 60 percent of Saudi university students are women, and help Saudi Arabia diversify from energy by building technical skills.

“By including more women in the labor force, you increase productivity” and thus add jobs to the economy, said John Sfakianakis, chief economist at Riyadh-based Banque Saudi Fransi. “By employing them, the government will get a return on its investment in education.”

Most of the international companies operating in Saudi Arabia are energy-related or contractors, such as Midland, Michigan-based Dow Chemical Co., Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil Corp. and Munich-based Siemens AG, Europe's largest engineering company.

Clerical Control

Abdullah is promoting women's rights as part of a broader drive to rein in the influence of the clerical establishment, which controls the educational and legal systems in a country where unemployment for those between ages 15 and 24 is 25 percent.

The king is establishing new commercial courts outside the existing judiciary, which follows Islamic Sharia law, and promoting science and technology under a five-year plan unveiled in 2005 to enhance job skills.

“Saudi women are participating positively in all programs of development by standing alongside their male brothers as students, employees, teachers, and businesswomen,” Abdullah said in a March 7 speech in Riyadh.

The desert kingdom's form of Islam means progress will be slow, said Bandar bin Mohammed al-Aiban, president of the government-run Saudi Human Rights Commission. It forbids mixing among unrelated people of opposite sexes, requires women to get a male relative's permission to work and prohibits women from driving a car.

One Step

“It's piecemeal, one step at a time,” he said. “We're an Islamic society that has its own traditions, which most families, not the government, would adhere to.”

The king in February last year appointed a woman, U.S.- educated Nora bint Abdullah al-Fayez, to the Cabinet for the first time. As deputy education minister, she is in charge of girls' schooling.

Abdullah, 85, set up the country's first co-educational university last September. A women's university in Riyadh that can house 26,000 students is under construction. And law and engineering degrees are now available for women, who previously were mostly restricted to studying medicine or education, al- Aiban said.

The king has also named 12 women advisers to the Shoura Council, a royal consultative body composed of 150 male members. They have to hold meetings by video link with their male colleagues, according to the council.

The king's push has met with opposition in a country where the religious police can carry out spot inspections of offices to check if men and women are mingling.

‘Put to Death'

First Deputy Prime Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz last March said there was “no need for women” to be appointed as members of the Shoura. And cleric Sheikh Abdul Rahman al-Barrak said on his Web site last month that supporters of mixing genders in schools and universities should be put to death.

Hospitals are in the forefront of women's employment. Forty percent of doctors with Saudi citizenship are now women, the Washington-based human rights and democracy group, Freedom House, said in a February study.

Shahinaz Murshid, one of five college-educated sisters, is the chief international medical-conference organizer at King Faisal Specialist Hospital, a state-run clinic in Riyadh. She works in the same office as her Saudi male boss.

“I'm not going to say it's easy to apply it to other areas like in hospitals, but a lot of the new generation are working very hard on this,” she said.

Alwaleed's Open Offices

Almost all Saudi women who work are in single-sex work spaces in the public sector. Of those, 84 percent work in education, according to the Freedom House report.

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the billionaire Saudi investor, ignores the restrictions thanks to his royal status. In his Rotana media holding company's 58th-floor offices atop the Kingdom Tower in Riyadh, women without veils, in high heels and skirts, work next to men.

“This is an open environment that's unique,” said Daneh Abuahmed, director of information technology at Rotana. She covers her hair after she leaves the office.

Al-Sulaiman, by contrast, says: “You have to proceed carefully. You have to respect others.” She wears her abaya and headscarf in public and says her husband's authorization makes it harder for clerics to object to her working with men. She has a doctorate in nutrition from King's College London and is a board member of Jeddah-based Rolaco Trading & Contracting, whose activities include building and steelmaking.

“What we're doing today is creating opportunities for women within the limitations that exist in Saudi Arabia,” she said.