JEDDAH – Saudi women wanting to nullify the Saudi male guardianship system has become a popular and controversial topic on social media.
Several courts recorded around 50 cases over the past two years of women calling for the annulment of male guardianship after they were abused and deprived of their salaries, often experiencing physical and verbal violence, Al-Watan reported.
The number of complaints where women called for their male guardianship to be cancelled across all branches of National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) were more than 25.
Mufleh Al-Qahtani, Chairman of the NSHR, said that the commission received several cases demanding annulment of the male legal guardianship during the past three years.
"We communicated with the Ministry of Justice, represented in court, explaining that the reasons behind such cases are being studied. If valid reasons are found compelling the case is directed to the judges. There has been sentences issued with nullifying the guardianship," he added.
He said guardianship is responsible for protecting and helping women, but when a legal guardian fails to fulfill his duty, affected women can seek justice "Jurisdiction is issued to transfer the guardianship from one person to the other or to the woman herself, especially if she is a divorcee or a widow with children. She is entitled to be the guardian of her children," he said.
The NSHR chief said women often called for their guardianships to be cancelled when their guardian suffered a mental illness, was violent, prevented women for marriage, denied inheritance, or was addicted to drugs.
"There are authoritative controlling brothers and their legal guardianship is dropped by the judicial authorities," he added.
Lawyer, Sultan Al-Mozahim, said people need to differentiate between consent and guardianship, and said that the former was required to study, work and travel but did not require the permission of guardians, whereas the latter is in the state of marriage only.
"So many men have abused this authority. The male has to suffer an illness or a drug addict or an abuser for the guardianship to be nullified," he said.
