Absher: As the women of Saudi Arabia are monitored using the application
Dmitry Kurkin
Past week human rights activists hit out with criticism on the Absher mobile app, which allows the husbands and relatives of women in Saudi Arabia to control their movement, including banning them from leaving the country. Public figures (including US Senator Ron Weiden, who called the service a tool for "blatant surveillance and control of women") called on Google and Apple to remove the application from Google Play and the App Store, respectively. Corporations have not done so yet, but promised to examine the issue. For its part, the Saudi Ministry of the Interior, which developed Absher, called the events "an organized campaign aimed at questioning the goals and objectives of the application."
At its core, Absher is nothing more than the Saudi counterpart of the Gosuslugi portal, launched to reduce bureaucratic costs. This is a single platform with dozens of functions: it allows, for example, to pay fines, renew a driver's license, register acts of civil status such as birth of a child or divorce. In Saudi Arabia itself, where the bustle of departmental offices is still vividly remembered, the application immediately became popular - since its launch, it has been downloaded about 11 million times.
What was not spoken about outside the country until recently, is that Absher makes it possible to actually control the movement of Saudi women. Local laws do not allow women to travel abroad without the permission of a male guardian (most often a husband or father). And in the event that the subject of the kingdom is trying to cross the border of the country, the application sends its guardian a notification about this and a request for permission. Therefore, for women who are trying to escape from Saudi Arabia, fleeing from the family abuse, the application becomes something of a limiting electronic bracelet.
The Insider edition tells the story of Shahad Al-Mohaymed, a Saudi woman who, at the age of seventeen, was able to escape from a family in which she was humiliated and physically abused for years. She planned her escape for about a year, the right moment introduced herself when she and her family went to Turkey for holidays. In order to gain time for herself, she took away her relatives' credit cards, passports and smartphones - the latter precisely so that she could not be tracked with the help of Absher.
At the same time, commentators note that removing Absher will not solve the problem, remove the authority of Saudi Arabia from criticism and, possibly, only worsen the situation of local women.
According to observers, thousands of women annually try to escape from Saudi Arabia, for whom escape seems to be the only guaranteed way to defend themselves: the local police are far from always taking the side of the victims, sorting out cases of family violence. In many cases, Absher with its alert system reduces the chances of escape to zero (unless the woman was able to get to the database and change the settings, which is associated with an additional risk).
At the same time, commentators note that the removal of Absher from the App Store and Google Play itself will not solve the problem, remove the criticism of Saudi Arabia’s power, and possibly only worsen the situation of local women. Ultimately, the surveillance and control functions in the annex reflect the country's patriarchal legislation, the debates about the alignment of which in Saudi Arabia itself have been going on for a long time.
“Discussion of the law on custodial supervision continues, but this is our internal matter - this is a matter that our society must decide on its own, and not under pressure from outside,” said Muna Abu Suleiman, a Saudi TV presenter and activist who advocates for the rights of women. on Twitter, asking women if many of them have access to the accounts of their guardians at Absher. Most responded that they themselves are in control of their fate. Men who do not think they need to control women give them access to Absher, and this says that women are increasingly making decisions. " She fears that Absher’s criticism can harm the already fragile dialogue between Islamic culture and the West and a gradual feminine empowerment in her country: “People don’t understand the consequences [of blocking the app]. They have very naive and idealistic views on what is happening.”
Emancipation in Saudi Arabia, which in 2016 occupied the 141st place out of 144 in the Global Gender Gap Report gender equality ranking, does occur, although not too quickly by the standards of the Western world. In 2015, women received the right to vote in elections for the first time, and from 2018, they can, in particular, open their own business without the participation of a male guardian, work as a notary, drive cars, serve in the armed forces and intelligence, as well as attend sports events and cinemas (the latter in Saudi Arabia were only recently earned).
All this is the result of a strategic program proposed by Crown Prince Mohammed ibn Salman. At the same time, gender segregation in the country is still high, and women's rights are a bargaining figure in a political game (according to one version, Iman Salman raised his emancipation to a shield to reduce the influence of religious authorities who do not support him in the fight for the throne). And not everyone is sure that quick reforms can change a society that has lived according to Sharia for many decades.