Empowering women in Saudi Arabia
At a recent forum looking at the role of Saudi women in the year 2020, it was clear that women have an important role to play in the future of Saudi Arabia. In her keynote address, Princess Adelah bint Abdullah ibn Abdul Aziz stressed the importance of women’s empowerment and cautioned that the country will never develop without using all the talents and abilities of Saudi citizens — both men and women. The Kingdom’s current work force to be 11.5 million and it is anticipated that the figure would rise to 21 million by 2020. She said the contribution of women is inevitable with 121,000 Saudi girls graduating from secondary schools and 44,000 from universities annually. Moreover, Saudi women invest SR42 billion in the market and their bank savings amount to SR100 billion.
Abdul Wahid Al-Homaid, deputy minister of labour, told forum participants that 66 percent of Saudi university students are women, and that makes their integration into the workforce a must for progress and development. He said the government is keen to address the factors that hinder the process of employing women, which include transportation problems, unpleasant working conditions and the lack of the proper skills to qualify women to work in much-needed services, such as health care, information technology or women-specific retail services. However, women in the audience criticized the ministry for making it difficult for them to manage their own businesses.
