Last week I was reading a story in TIME magazine reporting on changing gender dynamics in Saudi Arabia. The article describes the National Family Safety Program, which was started by a group of women in 1999 in response to widespread domestic violence. The group is headed by Princess Adelah (King Abdullah’s daughter) and in 2006, they helped write the country’s first laws banning the abuse of women by their husbands and fathers.
Much of the programs energy is devoted to educating Saudi men that they no longer have the right to beat their families. This spring, the program organized a series of town-hall-style meetings around the country.
Its refreshing to see a government sponsor a community-based initiative empowered by women and with the goal of fighting domestic violence and helping families better care for one another.
I should own up to the fact that I know very little about gender in Saudi Arabia, but, I do know a little something about town-hall meetings; my most recent town-hall memories are of tea-bag wielding Americans threatening their representatives to stop improving health care access or else.
I’m not trying to compare and contrast our two countries; I was simply struck by the importance of the work of the National Family Safety Program, especially in the face of the nonsense that was America’s health care town-hall meetings. Here’s to hoping that the NFSP town-hall meetings are successful in improving the future for women in Saudi Arabia, and that America’s health care “town-hall meetings” become a thing of the past.
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For more on the National Family Safety Program, click here.
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