Wajeha al-Huwaider ( ar, وجيهة الحويدر) (born 1962 or 1963) is a Saudi activist and writer, who played key roles in the
anti male-guardianship and
women to drive campaigns during the early twenty-first century. She is a co-founder of
.
As a result of her work, al-Huwaider has been the recipient of both significant legal prosecution in Saudi Arabia and international praise.
Childhood and education
Al-Huwaider was raised in
al-Ahsa in Eastern Saudi Arabia. She obtained a master of arts degree in ''Reading Management'' from
George Washington University.
Writing and activism
Al-Huwaider spent several years writing for her local press, including the Arabic Language daily ''
Al-Watan'' and the English-language daily ''
Arab News
''Arab News'' is an English-language daily newspaper published in Saudi Arabia. It is published from Riyadh. The target audiences of the paper, which is published in broadsheet format, are businessmen, executives and diplomats.
At least as of ...
''. Over the course of her tenure, she covered progressive policy topics like strengthening women's rights and improving the treatment of Saudi Arabia's Shia Muslim minority.
Following her written declaration that Saudi citizens were increasingly turning to the US for policy solutions because of a growing disillusion with the Saudi state, the government banned her from domestic publishing in 2003. Following this, Al-Huwaider began to work for a number of pro free-speech Pan-Arab media sites where she became internationally renowned for writing about women's rights.
Together with activist
Fawzia al-Oyouni, Wajeha Al-Huwaider created the website "Saudi Women Voice" in 2007 to provide information and statistics regarding the plight of women in Saudi Arabia and active campaigns to combat their oppression.
However, the domain was shut down in 2015.
On 6 August 2006, al-Huwaider was arrested after she publicly protested by holding a sign stating "Give women their rights". She was detained again on 20 September 2006 for six hours.
Before she was released, al-Huwaider was forced to sign a statement agreeing to cease all human rights activism and was banned from travelling outside
Saudi Arabia. The travel ban was lifted on 28 September.
Al-Huwaider supported the appointment of
Norah al-Faiz
Norah bint Abdullah Al Faiz ( ar, نورة بنت عبد الله الفايز), also spelled Noura Al Fayez, (born 1956) is the first woman to hold a cabinet-level office in Saudi Arabia. She was vice minister of education from 2009 to 2015.
Ea ...
and added that the Saudi government needs to further the rights of women. Al-Huwaider wrote "Saudi women are weak, no matter how high their status, even the 'pampered' ones among them, because they have no law to protect them from attack by anyone. The oppression of women and the effacement of their selfhood is a flaw affecting most homes in Saudi Arabia."
In 2007, she presented a petition to King Abdullah advocating an end to the ban on women drivers. She collected signatures for the petition in public areas and through the internet, despite intimidation and the frequent blocking of her e-mail address. The year after, she received international media attention when a video of her driving in Saudi Arabia was posted on YouTube; it was illegal for women to drive in Saudi Arabia at the time.
[Saudi women make video protest]
" '' BBC''. Tuesday 11 March 2008. Retrieved on 23 May 2010. Al-Huwaider also campaigned
against the mahram or guardianship laws that give male kin control over women's daily lives, including permission to travel outside the home. In 2009 she deliberately tried on three separate occasions to cross the border with Bahrain without male guardian approval. She was refused departure all three times. She encouraged other women to try the same experiment in protest against the male guardianship system in general.
A brief period spent in the United States influenced her to become a feminist activist:
"Before that, I knew that I'm a human being. However, in the United States I felt it, because I was treated as one. I learned life means nothing without freedom. Then I decided to become a real women's rights activist, in order to free women in my country and to make them feel alive."
In 2011 al-Huwaider and
Fawzia al-Oyouni were charged with kidnapping for attempting to help
Nathalie Morin
Nathalie Morin is a Canadian citizen, born in Quebec, who has been living in Saudi Arabia with her partner, Saeed Al Shahrani since 2005. She claims that she is physically and psychologically mistreated with her four children. She has stated th ...
to escape her abusive husband and go to the Canadian embassy in
Riyadh.
The charges were dropped due to the influence of a prominent politician in the region, but a year later al-Huwaider and Fawzia al-Oyouni were charged with the lesser crime of takhbib (inciting a separation between a husband and wife).
On 15 June 2013 al-Huwaider and al-Oyouni were convicted and sentenced to prison for ten months, with an additional two-year travel ban.
In 2017, Wajeha Al-Huwaider received renewed international attention when King Salman of Saudi Arabia officially announced a lifting of the driving ban on women. In a conversation with Canadian press, the activist expressed her joy at the decision while applauding the general direction in which the country was headed.
Accolades and Recognition
The editor of the reform-minded Aafaq compared al-Huwaidar to
Rosa Parks.
In 2004, Wajeha Al-Huwaider received the "Oxfam Novib/PEN Free Expression award" in Hague, presented to journalists in the international community who have faced prosecution for their work.
As a result of her anti-driving campaign work, Al-Huwaider was featured in CSPAN's annual "Women in the World Summitt" in 2011 to discuss the gender disparities present in Saudi Arabia.
See also
*
Manal al-Sharif
*
2018–2019 Saudi crackdown on feminists The 2018–2019 Saudi crackdown on feminists consisted of waves of arrests of women's rights activists in Saudi Arabia involved in the women to drive movement and the Saudi anti male-guardianship campaign and of their supporters during 2018 and 2019 ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Huwaider, Wajeha Al-
1960s births
Living people
Saudi Arabian dissidents
Saudi Arabian feminists
Saudi Arabian women
Huwaider
Saudi Arabian women's rights activists
English-language writers from Saudi Arabia