International Womens Day March 8th 2010--

Close on the heels of an American businesswoman in Saudi Arabia being jailed for having coffee with a man who wasn't her husband, another woman has just been sentenced to 300 lashes and 18 months in jail for appearing in public without a male guardian. 

A Saudi Arabian woman, Sawsan Salim, has been sentenced to 300 lashings and one and a half years in prison for filing harassment complaints about government officials and appearing in court in the northern Qasim region without a male guardian present. In 2007, Salim filed 118 harassment complaints against local officials, who allegedly mistreated her when she appeared in their offices unchaperoned, according to Business Week. Salim appeared without a male guardian because her husband, her sole male family member, was in prison at the time. She initially approached a local court in 2004, when she sought help to release her husband from prison.

In order to conduct any kind of business in public in the region, even to do simple things like having a medical appointment or opening a checking account or even driving a car, a woman must be accompanied by some male family member who can act as her guardian, even, as the newswire piece mentions, if that male is in fact a minor child like a son.

According to Business Week, the system, which has been tracked by Human Rights Watch while leadership promised to correct issues over nine months ago, may be on a very slow path to turning around.  The government put together a plan last month that would allow women lawyers to appear in court.  Progress can't come soon enough.  Last March an elderly Saudi woman was sentenced to 40 lashes, four months of jail and deportation from the country for being seen with two men who were not family. The men were bringing her bread.

Source--

http://www.care2.com/causes/womens-rights/blog/in-public-without-a-man/