The laws on what women can – and can't – do in Saudi Arabia

Critics continue to express significant concerns about the status of women in Saudi Arabia

The Week : After years of languishing in the bottom ten, Saudi Arabia has been inching up the ranks of the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Index, now coming 126th out of 146 countries in the 2024 report.

It's an improvement from the days when the Middle Eastern nation was consistently judged one of the world's worst when it came to equality between men and women. The change is attributed to the modernising reforms of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. In 2017, he launched Vision 2030, "a wide-ranging plan for social and economic change" that included a return to "moderate Islam" and a vow to "eradicate the remnants of extremism", said the BBC.

However, critics continue to express significant concerns about the status of women in Saudi Arabia, highlighting continuing systemic discrimination and human-rights violations. In March 2024, women's rights activists around the world criticised the appointment of Abdulaziz Alwasil, Saudi ambassador to the UN, as chair of the UN's Commission on the Status of Women. Several organisations highlighted "the irony" of a group aimed at empowering women being led by a man from a country "in which the gap between men's and women’s rights, even on paper, is so wide", said The Guardian.

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