The Saudi government has amended some regulations to allow adult women to travel or obtain a passport without the permission of their guardians.
Dr. Haya al-Mani, a former member of Saudi Arabia's Shura Council, told Asharq Al-Awsat on Thursday that “the amendment of the system on obtaining travel documents is part of the project to continuously empower women.”
“The real empowerment of women starts with changing regulations and amending any system that does not grant them rights as citizens,” she said.
The amendments to regulations also grant women for the first time the right to register child birth and marriage and to be issued official family documents and be eligible as a guardian to children who are minors.
This means Saudi women have now the right to apply for and obtain a family register from the Civil Status Administration.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said last October that the Kingdom would review the guardianship system that was issued in 1979.
The decrees, issued Wednesday, were made public before dawn Friday in the Kingdom's official weekly Um al-Qura gazette.
They came a year after lifting a driving ban for women.
