Qatar’s restrictive laws against women are finally under the spotlight

Plenty has been said and written about human rights in Qatar in recent years but one issue has barely featured in any of the discussions – the lives of local women.

That might be about to change.

Human Rights Watch is expected soon to publish a report focusing on the issue of the country’s restrictive guardianship laws, which allow fathers or male relatives to prevent unmarried Qatari women up to the age of 25 from travelling or studying abroad.

Domestically in Qatar, guardianship laws have increasingly been challenged by young Qatari women, an emboldened generation that is challenging norms and asking for change.

In the past couple of years, many have gone online to challenge the rules, as well as question other discriminatory practices.

There was plenty of criticism last year on social media when it was alleged that Qatari immigration officials had arbitrarily – or from male instruction higher up – increased the age that single local women could travel abroad to 30 or older.

One theory was that the age limit had been increased after one prominent woman fled Qatar and sought sanctuary in the UK, claiming Qatari women were treated like “property”.

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The issue has opened the door for challenges to other social ills such as domestic abuse, certainly not unique to Qatar but rarely publicly acknowledged.

The number of Qataris – men and women – is small; there are only about 310,000 locals in a population of some 2.7 million. Yet female Qatari voices are getting louder. Women are highly educated, many study at Western institutions, with about 70 per cent of local graduates being female.

Talk to young Qatari women and they will tell you that they have far different expectations from their parents. One told me that they are looking for “freedom” and “need room to speak, without being judged”.

And, with the FIFA World Cup taking place in Doha in 2022, everything that goes on in Qatar is placed under a magnifying glass – and that includes scrutiny of what life is like for Qatari women.

Every major global event brings with it an investigation of what life is like in the host country. Some of the issues, like the plight of women in one of the richest countries on Earth, may not be something you expected to hear about, but you will do in the coming months.

Yours,

David Harding

International editor