title: Video game development

text: Because game development is focused on the presentation and gameplay as seen by the player, there often is little rigor in maintaining and testing backend code in early stages of development since such code may be readily disregarded if there are changes found in gameplay. Some automated testing may be used to assure the core game engine operates as expected, but most game testing comes via game tester, who enter the testing process once a playable prototype is available. This may be one level or subset of the game software that can be used to any reasonable extent. The use of testers may be lightweight at the early stages of development, but the testers' role becomes more predominant as the game nears completion, becoming a full-time role alongside development. Early testing is considered a key part of game design; the most common issue raised in several published post-mortems on game developer was the failure to start the testing process early.


title: Video game development

text: As code matures and the gameplay features solidify, then development typically includes more rigorous test controls such as regression testing to make sure new updates to the code base do not change working parts of the game. Games are complex software systems, and changes in one code area may unexpected cause a seemingly unrelated part of the game to fail. Testers are tasked to repeatedly play through updated versions of games in these later stages to look for any issues or bugs not otherwise found from automated testing. Because this can be a monotonous task of playing the same game over and over, this process can lead to games frequently being released with uncaught bugs or glitches.


title: Video game development

text: There are other factors simply inherent to video games that can make testing difficult. This includes the use of randomized gameplay systems, which require more testing for both game balance and bug tracking than more linearized games, the balance of cost and time to devote to testing as part of the development budget, and assuring that the game still remains fun and entertaining to play as changes are made to it.


title: Video game development

text: Despite the dangers of overlooking regression testing, some game developers and publishers fail to test the full feature suite of the game and ship a game with bugs. This can result in customers dissatisfaction and failure to meet sales goals. When this does happen, most developers and publishers quickly release patches that fix the bugs and make the game fully playable again. More recent, certain publishing models are designed specifically to accommodate the fact that first releases of games may be bug-ridden but will be fixed post-release. The early access model invites players to pay into a game before its planned release and help to provide feedback and bug reports. Mobile games and games with live services are also anticipated to be updated on a frequent basis, offset pre-release testing with live feedback and bug reports.


title: Video game development

text: Commercial game development projects may be required to meet milestones set by publisher. Milestones mark major events during game development and are used to track game's progress. Such milestones may be, for example, "first playable", "alpha", or "beta" game versions. Project milestones depend on the developer schedules.


title: Video game development

text: Milestones are usually based on multiple short descriptions for functionality; examples may be "Player roaming around in game environment" or "Physics working, collisions, vehicle" etc. (numerous descriptions are possible). These milestones are usually how the developer gets paid; sometimes as "an advance against royalty". These milestones are listed, anywhere from three to twenty depending on developer and publisher. The milestone list is usually a collaborative agreement between the publisher and developer. The developer usually advocates for making the milestone descriptions as simple as possible; depending on the specific publisher - the milestone agreements may get very detailed for a specific game. When working with a good publisher, the "spirit of the law" is usually adhered to regarding milestone completion... in other words if the milestone is 90% complete the milestone is usually paid with the understanding that it will be 100% complete by the next due milestone. It is a collaborative agreement between publisher and developer, and usually (but not always) the developer is constrained by heavy monthly development expenses that need to be met. Also, sometimes milestones are "swapped", the developer or publisher may mutually agree to amend the agreement and rearrange milestone goals depending on changing requirements and development resources available. Milestone agreements are usually included as part of the legal development contracts. After each "milestone" there is usually a payment arrangement. Some very established developers may simply have a milestone agreement based on the amount of time the game is in development (monthly / quarterly) and not specific game functionality - this is not as common as detailed functionality "milestone lists".


title: Video game development

text: There is no industry standard for defining milestones, and such vary depending on publisher, year, or project. Some common milestones for two-year development cycle are as follows:


title: Video game development

text: The "first playable" is the game version containing representative gameplay and assets, this is the first version with functional major gameplay elements. It is often based on the prototype created in pre-production. Alpha and first playable are sometimes used to refer to a single milestone, however large projects require first playable before feature complete alpha. First playable occurs 12 to 18 months before code release. It is sometimes referred to as the "Pre-Alpha" stage.


title: Video game development

text: "Alpha" is the stage when key gameplay functionality is implemented, and assets are partially finished. A game in alpha is "feature complete", that is, game is playable and contains all the major features. These features may be further revised based on testing and feedback. Additional small, new features may be added, similarly planned, but unimplemented features may be dropped. Programmers focus mainly on finishing the codebase, rather than implementing additions.


title: Video game development

text: "Code freeze" is the stage when new code is no longer added to the game and only bugs are being corrected. Code freeze occurs three to four months before code release.


title: Video game development

text: "Beta" is feature and asset complete version of the game, when only bugs are being fixed. This version contains no bugs that prevent the game from being shippable. No changes are made to the game features, assets, or code. Beta occurs two to three months before code release.


title: Video game development

text: "Code release" is the stage when many bugs are fixed and game is ready to be shipped or submitted for console manufacturer review. This version is tested against QA test plan. First code release candidate is usually ready three to four weeks before code release.


title: Video game development

text: In most AAA game development, games are announced a year or more and given a planned release date or approximate window so that they can promote and market the game, establish orders with retailers, and entice consumers to pre-order the game. Delaying the release of a video game can have negative financial impact for publishers and developers, and extensive delays may lead to project cancellation and employee layoffs. To assure a game makes a set release date, publishers and developers may require their employees to work overtime to complete the game, which is considered common in the industry. This overtime is often referred to it as "crunch time" or "crunch mode". In 2004 and afterwards, the culture of crunch time in the industry came under scrutiny, leading to many publishers and developers to reduce the expectation on developers for overtime work and better schedule management, though crunch time still can occur.


title: Video game development

text: After the game goes gold and ships, some developers will give team members "comp time" (perhaps up to a week or two) to compensate for the overtime put in to complete the game, though this compensation is not standard.


title: Video game development

text: Games developed for video game consoles have had almost no maintenance period in the past. The shipped game would forever house as many bugs and features as when released. This was common for consoles since all consoles had identical or nearly identical hardware; making incompatibility, the cause of many bugs, a non-issue. In this case, maintenance would only occur in the case of a port, sequel, or enhanced remake that reuses a large portion of the engine and assets.


title: Video game development

text: In recent times popularity of online console games has grown, and online capable video game consoles and online services such as Xbox Live for the Xbox have developed. Developers can maintain their software through downloadable patches. These changes would not have been possible in the past without the widespread availability of the Internet.


title: Video game development

text: PC development is different. Game developers try to account for majority of configurations and hardware. However, the number of possible configurations of hardware and software inevitably leads to discovery of game-breaking circumstances that the programmers and testers didn't account for.


title: Video game development

text: Programmers wait for a period to get as many bug reports as possible. Once the developer thinks they've obtained enough feedback, the programmers start working on a patch. The patch may take weeks or months to develop, but it's intended to fix most accounted bugs and problems with the game that were overlooked past code release, or in rare cases, fix unintended problems caused by previous patches. Occasionally a patch may include extra features or content or may even alter gameplay.


title: Video game development

text: In the case of a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG), such as a MMORPG or MMORTS, the shipment of the game is the starting phase of maintenance. Such online games are in continuous maintenance as the gameworld is continuously changed and iterated and new features are added. The maintenance staff for a popular MMOG can number in the dozens, sometimes including members of the original programming team.


title: Video game development

text: Several development disciplines, such as audio, dialogue, or motion capture, occur for relatively short periods of time. Efficient employment of these roles requires either large development house with multiple simultaneous title production or outsourcing from third-party vendors. Employing personnel for these tasks full-time is expensive, so a majority of developers outsource a portion of the work. Outsourcing plans are conceived during the pre-production stage; where the time and finances required for outsourced work are estimated.


title: Video game development

text: Outsourced work is sometimes anonymous, i.e. not credited on the final product. This might go against the wishes of the developer, or it is something they reluctantly consent to because it's the only work they can get. See for more information on this.


title: Video game development

text: However, anonymity can also be agreed upon, or even desired by the outsourced party. A 2015 "Polygon" article stated that this practice is known as ghost development. Ghost developers are hired by other developers to provide assistance, by publishers to develop a title they designed, or by companies outside the gaming industry. These businesses prefer to keep this hidden from the public to protect their brand equity, not wanting consumers or investors to know that they rely on external help. Ghost development can involve (small) portions of a project, but there have been instances of entire games being outsourced without the studio being credited.


title: Video game development

text: Ghost development has a particular long history in the Japanese video game industry. Probably the best-known example is Tose. Founded in 1979, this 'behind-the-scenes' agent has either developed or helped develop over 2,000 games as of 2017, most of them anonymously. This includes uncredited contributions to multiple "Resident Evil", "Metal Gear", and "Dragon Quest" titles. Another example is Tokyo-based Hyde, which worked on "Final Fantasy", "Persona", and "Yakuza" games. Its president, Kenichi Yanagihara, stated that the approach stems from Japanese culture, in which many people prefer not to seek the limelight.


title: Video game development

text: The publisher's marketing team targets the game for a specific market and then advertises it. The team advises the developer on target demographics and market trends, as well as suggests specific features. The game is then advertised and the game's high concept is incorporated into the promotional material, ranging from magazine ads to TV spots. Communication between developer and marketing is important.


title: Video game development

text: The length and purpose of a game demo depends on the purpose of the demo and target audience. A game's demo may range between a few seconds (such as clips or screenshots) to hours of gameplay. The demo is usually intended for journalists, buyers, trade shows, general public, or internal employees (who, for example, may need to familiarize with the game to promote it). Demos are produced with public relations, marketing and sales in mind, maximizing the presentation effectiveness.


title: Video game development

text: As a game nears completion, the publisher will want to showcase a demo of the title at trade shows. Many games have a "Trade Show demo" scheduled.


title: Video game development

text: The major annual trade shows are, for example, Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) or Penny Arcade Expo (PAX). E3 is the largest show in North America. E3 is hosted primarily for marketing and business deals. New games and platforms are announced at E3 and it received broad press coverage. Thousands of products are on display and press demonstration schedules are kept. In recent years E3 has become a more closed-door event and many advertisers have withdrawn, reducing E3's budget. PAX, created by authors of Penny Arcade blog and web-comic, is a mature and playful event with a player-centred philosophy.


title: Video game development

text: A game created in one language may also be published in other countries which speak a different language. For that region, the developers may want to translate the game to make it more accessible. For example, some games created for PlayStation Vita were initially published in Japanese language, like "Soul Sacrifice". Non-native speakers of the game's original language may have to wait for the translation of the game to their language. But most modern big-budget games take localization into account during the development process and the games are released in several different languages simultaneously.


title: Video game development

text: Localization is the process of translating the language assets in a game into other languages. By localizing games, they increase their level of accessibility where games could help to expend the international markets effectively. Game localization is generally known as language translations yet a "full localization" of a game is a complex project. Different levels of translation range from: zero translation being that there is no translation to the product and all things are sent raw, basic translation where only a few text and subtitles are translated or even added, and a full translation where new voice overs and game material changes are added.


title: Video game development

text: There are various essential elements on localizing a game including translating the language of the game to adjusting in-game assets for different cultures to reach more potential consumers in other geographies (or globalization for short). Translation seems to fall into the scope of localization, which itself constitutes a substantially broader endeavor. These include the different levels of translation to the globalization of the game itself. However, certain developers seem to be divided on whether globalization falls under localization or not.


title: Video game development

text: Moreover, in order to fit into the local markets, game production companies often change or redesign the graphic designs or the packaging of the game for marketing purposes. For example, the popular game "Assassin's Creed" has two different packaging designs for the European and US market. By localizing the graphics and packaging designs, companies might arouse better connections and attention from the consumers from various regions.


title: Video game development

text: The costs of developing a video game varies widely depending on several factors including team size, game genre and scope, and other factors such as intellectual property licensing costs. Most video game consoles also require development licensing costs which include game development kits for building and testing software. Game budgets also typically include costs for marketing and promotion, which can be on the same order in cost as the development budget.


title: Video game development

text: Prior to the 1990s, game development budgets, when reported, typically were on the average of , with known outliers, such as the that Atari had paid to license the rights for "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" in addition to development costs. The adoption of technologies such as 3D hardware rendering and CD-ROM integration by the mid-1990s, enabling games with more visual fidelity compared to prior titles, caused developers and publishers to put more money into game budgets as to flesh out narratives through cutscenes and full-motion video, and creating the start of the AAA video game industry. Some of the most expensive titles to develop around this time, approaching costs typical of major motion picture production budgets, included "Final Fantasy VII" in 1997 with an estimated budget of , and "Shenmue" in 1999 with an estimated budget of ."Final Fantasy VII", with its marketing budget, had a total estimated cost of .


title: Video game development

text: Raph Koster, a video game designer and economist, evaluated published development budgets (less any marketing) for over 250 games in 2017 and reported that since the mid-1990s, there has been a type of Moore's Law in game budgets, with the average budget doubling about every five years after accounting for inflation. Koster reported average budgets were around by 2017, and could reach over by the early 2020s. Koster asserts these trends are partially tied to the technological Moore's law that gave more computational power for developers to work into their games, but also related to expectations for content from players in newer games and the number of players games are expected to draw. Shawn Layden, former CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, affirmed that the costs for each generation of PlayStation consoles nearly doubled, with PlayStation 4 games have average budgets of and anticipating that PlayStation 5 games could reach .


title: Video game development

text: The rising costs of budgets of AAA games in the early 2000s led publishers to become risk-averse, staying to titles that were most likely to be high-selling games to recoup their costs. As a result of this risk aversion, the selection of AAA games in the mid-2000s became rather similar, and gave the opportunity for indie games that provided more experimental and unique gameplay concepts to expand around that time.


title: Video game development

text: Independent games or "indie games" are produced by individuals and small teams with no large-scale developer or publisher affiliations. Indie developers generally rely on Internet distribution schemes. Many hobbyist indie developers create mods of existing games. Indie developers are credited for creative game ideas (for example, "Darwinia", "", "World of Goo"). Current economic viability of indie development is questionable, however in recent years internet delivery platforms, such as, Xbox Live Arcade and Steam have improved indie game success. In fact, some indie games have become very successful, such as "Braid", "World of Goo", and "Minecraft". In recent years many communities have emerged in support of indie games such as the popular indie game marketplace Itch.io, indie game YouTube channels and a large indie community on Steam. It is common for indie game developers to release games for free and generate revenue through other means such as microtransactions (in-game transactions), in-game advertisements and crowd-funding services like Patreon and Kickstarter.


title: Video game development

text: The video game industry (formally referred to as interactive entertainment) is the economic sector involved with the development, marketing and sale of video games. The industry sports several unique approaches.


title: Video game development

text: In the United States, in the early history of video game development, the prominent locale for game development was the corridor from San Francisco to Silicon Valley in California. Most new developers in the US open near such "hot beds".


title: Video game development

text: At present, many large publishers still operate there, such as: Activision Blizzard, Capcom Entertainment, Crystal Dynamics, Electronic Arts, Namco Bandai Games, Sega of America, and Sony Computer Entertainment America. However, due to the nature of game development, many publishers are present in other regions, such as Big Fish Games (Washington), Majesco Entertainment (New Jersey), Microsoft Corporation (Washington), Nintendo of America (Washington), and Take-Two Interactive (New York),


title: Video game development

text: Many universities and design schools are offering classes specifically focused on game development. Some have built strategic alliances with major game development companies. These alliances ensure that students have access to the latest technologies and are provided the opportunity to find jobs within the gaming industry once qualified. Many innovative ideas are presented at conferences, such as Independent Games Festival (IGF) or Game Developers Conference (GDC).


title: Video game development

text: Indie game development may motivate students who produce a game for their final projects or thesis and may open their own game company.


title: Video game development

text: Video game industry employment is fairly volatile, similar to other artistic industries including television, music, etc. Scores of game development studios crop up, work on one game, and then quickly go under. This may be one reason why game developers tend to congregate geographically; if their current studio goes under, developers can flock to an adjacent one or start another from the ground up.


title: Video game development

text: In an industry where only the top 20% of products make a profit, it's easy to understand this fluctuation. Numerous games may start development and are cancelled, or perhaps even completed but never published. Experienced game developers may work for years and yet never ship a title: such is the nature of the business.


title: Northern Italy

text: Northern Italy (, , or just ) is a geographical and cultural region in the northern part of Italy. It consists of eight administrative regions: Aosta Valley, Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna, Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Trentino-Alto Adige. As of 2014, its population was 27,801,460. Rhaeto-Romance and Gallo-Italic languages are spoken in the region, as opposed to the Italo-Dalmatian languages spoken in the rest of Italy. The Venetian language is sometimes considered to be part of the Italo-Dalmatian languages, but some major publications such as "Ethnologue" (to which UNESCO refers on its page about endangered languages) and "Glottolog" define it as Gallo-Italic.


title: Northern Italy

text: For statistic purposes, the Istituto Nazionale di Statistica (ISTAT) uses the terms Northwest Italy and Northeast Italy for two of Italy's five statistical regions in its reporting. These same subdivisions are used to demarcate first-level Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) regions ("NUTS 1 regions") within the European Union, and the Italian constituencies for the European Parliament.


title: Northern Italy

text: Northern Italy was called by different terms in different periods of history. During ancient times the terms Gallia Cisalpina, Gallia Citerior or Gallia Togata were used to define that part of Italy inhabited by Celts (Gauls) between the 4th and 3rd century BC. Conquered by the Roman Republic in the 220s BC, it was a Roman province from c. 81 BC until 42 BC, when it was merged into Roman Italy. Until that time, it was considered part of Gaul, precisely that part of Gaul on the "hither side of the Alps" (from the perspective of the Romans), as opposed to Transalpine Gaul ("on the far side of the Alps").


title: Northern Italy

text: After the fall of the Roman Empire and the settlement of the Lombards the name Langobardia Maior was used, in the Early Middle Ages, to define the domains of the Lombard Kingdom in Northern Italy. The Lombard territories beyond were called Langobardia Minor, consisting of the duchies of Spoleto and Benevento.


title: Northern Italy

text: During the Late Middle Ages, after the fall of the northern part of the Lombard Kingdom to Charlemagne, the term Longobardia was used to mean Northern Italy within the medieval Kingdom of Italy. As the area became partitioned in regional states the term Lombardy subsequentially shifted to indicate only the area of the Duchies of Milan, Mantua, Parma and Modena and later only to the area around Milan.


title: Northern Italy

text: During the late modern period, the term "Alta Italia" ('High Italy') was widely used, for such by the Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale Alta Italia during the second World War. In the 1960s, the term "Padania" began to be sometimes used as geographical synonym of the Po Valley. The term appeared sparingly until the early 1990s, when Lega Nord, a federalist and at times separatist political party in Italy, proposed "Padania" as a possible name for an independent state in Northern Italy. Since then, the term has carried strong political connotations.


title: Northern Italy

text: In pre-Roman centuries it was inhabited by different peoples among whom the Ligures, the ancient Veneti, who prospered through their trade in amber and breeding of horses, the Etruscans, attested in Northern Italy at least since the early Iron Age during the Villanova period, founded the city of Bologna and spread the use of writing; later, starting from the 5th century BC, the area was invaded by Celtic – Gallic tribes. These people founded several cities like Turin and Milan and extended their rule from the Alps to the Adriatic Sea. Their development was halted by the Roman expansion in the Po Valley from the 3rd century BC onwards. After centuries of struggle, in 194 BC the entire area of what is now Northern Italy became a Roman province with the name of Gallia Cisalpina ("Gaul on the inner side (with respect to Rome) of the Alps"). The Roman culture and language overwhelmed the former civilization in the following years, and Northern Italy became one of the most developed and rich areas of the western half of the empire with the construction of a wide array of roads and the development of agriculture and trade.


title: Northern Italy

text: In late antiquity the strategic role of Northern Italy was emphasized by the moving of the capital of the Western Empire from Rome to Mediolanum in 286 and later to Ravenna from 402 until the empire collapsed in 476.


title: Northern Italy

text: After the fall of the Western Empire, Northern Italy suffered heavily from destruction brought about by migration from Germanic peoples. In 493 the Ostrogoths managed to create a stable and prosperous kingdom, with its capital first in Ravenna and then in Pavia, but the Gothic War caused the kingdom to fall and devastated the region. In the 570s the Germanic Lombards, or Longobardi, entered Northern Italy from Friuli and founded a long-lasting reign (with its capital in Pavia) that gave the medieval name to the whole Northern Italy and the current name to the Lombardy region.


title: Northern Italy

text: After the initial struggles, relationships between the Lombard people and the Latin-speaking people improved. In the end, the Lombard language and culture assimilated with the Latin culture, leaving evidence in many names, the legal code and laws, and other things. The end of Lombard rule came in 774, when the Frankish king Charlemagne conquered Pavia, deposed Desiderius, the last Lombard king, and annexed the Lombard Kingdom to his empire changing the name in Kingdom of Italy. The former Lombard dukes were mostly replaced by Frankish counts, prince-bishops or marquises.


title: Northern Italy

text: In the 10th century, North Italy, although formally under the rule of the Holy Roman Empire, being included in the kingdom of Italy, of which Pavia remained the capital until 1024, however, gradually, starting from the last decades of the 11th century was in fact divided in a multiplicity of small, autonomous city-states, the medieval communes and maritime republic. The 11th century marked a significant boom in Northern Italy's economy, due to improved trading and agricultural innovations, culture flourished as well with many universities founded, among them the University of Bologna, the oldest university in Europe.


title: Northern Italy

text: The increasing richness of the city-states made them able to defy the traditional feudal supreme power, represented by the German emperors and their local vassals. This process led to the creation of different Lombard Leagues formed by allied cities of Lombardy that defeated the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick I, at Legnano, and his grandson Frederick II, at Parma, and becoming virtually independent from the German emperors.


title: Northern Italy

text: The Leagues failed to develop from an alliance to a lasting confederation and subsequently, among the various local city-states, a process of consolidation took place; most of them became lordships ruled by powerful families like the Della Scala of Verona or the Visconti of Milan, and conquered neighboring cities threatening to unify Northern Italy under a single state. In the end a balance of power was reached in 1454 with the Peace of Lodi and Northern Italy ended up divided between a small number of regional states, the most powerful were the Duchies of Savoy, Milan, Mantua, Ferrara and the Republics of Genoa and Venice, which had begun to extend its influence in the mainland from the 14th century onwards.


title: Northern Italy

text: In the 15th century Northern Italy became one of the centres of the Renaissance whose culture and works of art were highly regarded. The enterprising class of the communes extended its trade and banking activities well into northern Europe and "Lombards", the term that designated the merchants or bankers coming from northern Italy, were present in all of Europe.


title: Northern Italy

text: The Italian Wars between 1494 and 1559 ended the North Italian Renaissance and brought the region to be fought between France and the Spanish and Austrian House of Habsburg. After the decisive Battle of Pavia, most of the present-day Lombardy became under direct or indirect control of Spain.


title: Northern Italy

text: At the same time Ottoman control of the eastern Mediterranean and the discoveries of sea routes to Asia around Africa and of the Americas led to the decline of the Venetian Republic. While the Republic of Genoa managed to become the main banking base of the Spanish Empire.


title: Northern Italy

text: Pestilences, like that of 1628/1630, and the generally declining conditions of Italy's economy in the 17th and 18th centuries halted the further development of Northern Italy. The only polity that managed to thrive in this period was the Savoy's state which, thanks to military and diplomatic victories in 1720, managed to acquire the island of Sardinia, through which the then Dukes gained legitimacy as a proper Kingdom and increased Turin's importance as a European capital.


title: Northern Italy

text: After the French Revolution in the late 18th century Northern Italy was conquered by the French armies, many client republics were created by Napoleon and in 1805 a new Kingdom of Italy, made of all of Northern Italy but Piedmont that was annexed to France, was established with Milan as capital and Napoleon as head of state.


title: Northern Italy

text: In the congress of Vienna, the Kingdom of Sardinia was restored, and furthermore enlarged by annexing the Republic of Genoa to strengthen it as a barrier against France. The rest of Northern Italy was under Austrian rule, either direct like in the Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom or indirect like in the Duchies of Parma and Modena. Bologna and Romagna were given to the Papal State.


title: Northern Italy

text: The Austrian imperial government was unpopular because of their anti-liberal politics and Northern Italy became the intellectual centre leading the Italian unification process. Piedmont and the Kingdom of Sardinia, in particular, was the state that launched Italy's unification in 1859–1861. After defeating the Austrians in 1859 and annexing Northern Italy the new state proceeded to launch a campaign to conquer Southern and Central Italy and Turin briefly became the capital of the almost whole of Italy.


title: Northern Italy

text: After Italian unification the capital was moved from Turin to Rome and the administrative and institutional importance of Northern Italy was substantially reduced. However, from the late 19th century and especially with the economic boom of the 1950s–1960s, Northern Italy and especially the cities of Turin, Genoa, and Milan was the most important region in the Italian industrialization and sharpened its status of richest and most industrialized part of Italy.


title: Northern Italy

text: Between 1943 and 1945, during the Second World War, Northern Italy was part of the Fascist Italian Social Republic and the main theatre of the anti-fascist partisan activity. Between April 19 and 25, 1945 the cities of Northern Italy began an insurrection against Fascist and Nazist forces that led to the liberation of Northern Italy by Allied forces. Economic differences between Northern Italy and the rest of the country, as well as the short history of Italy as a single nation, led in the 1990s to the emergence of Padanian nationalism, as Lega Nord promoted either secession or larger autonomy for Padania, the name chosen to represent Northern Italy.


title: Northern Italy

text: Northern Italy is made of the basin of the River Po, which comprises the whole of the broad plain extending from the foot of the Apennines to that of the Alps, together with the valleys and slopes on both sides of it, the Venetian Plain and the Ligurian coast.


title: Northern Italy

text: Northern Italy has the Alps as northern and western boundary and the Apennine Mountains as the southern one. In between the two mountain ranges lies a large plain made of the Venetian Plain and the valley of the Po, the largest river in Italy, which flows eastward from the Cottian Alps to the Adriatic Sea and receives all the waters that flow from the Apennines northwards, and all those that descend from the Alps towards the south. The Po Valley is the largest plain in Italy and held the vast majority of North Italian population.


title: Northern Italy

text: The Alps are home to some worldwide-known mountains like the Matterhorn (Cervino), Monte Rosa, Gran Paradiso in the western Alps, and Bernina, Stelvio and Dolomites along the eastern side of the Alps. The highest peak in Europe is Mont Blanc, at above sea level, located at the border with France.


title: Northern Italy

text: With the exception of part of Liguria all of Northern Italy lies in the drainage basin of the Adriatic Sea (with rivers Po, Piave, Adige, Brenta, Tagliamento, Reno) though the waters from some border municipalities (Livigno in Lombardy, Innichen and Sexten in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol) drain into the Black Sea through the basin of the Danube, and the waters from the Lago di Lei in Lombardy drain into the North Sea through the basin of the Rhine.


title: Northern Italy

text: On the foothills of the Alps there are a number of subalpine moraine-dammed lakes, the largest of which is Garda. Other well known of these subalpine lakes are Lake Maggiore, whose most northerly section is part of Switzerland, Como, Orta, Lugano, Iseo, Idro.


title: Northern Italy

text: The climate of Northern Italy is mainly humid subtropical (Köppen "Cfa"), especially in the plains. Winter in Northern Italy is normally long, relatively dry and rather cold. In addition, there is a high seasonal temperature variation between summer and winter. In the hills and mountains, the climate is humid continental (Köppen "Dfb"). In the valleys it is cold but usually with low humidity, while it can be severely cold above , with copious snowfalls. The coastal areas of Liguria generally fit the Mediterranean climate profile. In the Alpine foothills, characterised by an Oceanic climate (Köppen "Cfb"), numerous lakes exercise a mitigating influence, allowing the cultivation of typically Mediterranean crops (olives, citrus fruit).


title: Northern Italy

text: A peculiarity of the regional climate is the thick fog that covers the plains between October and February, especially in the central Po Plain. The east coast, from Romagna to Trieste is occasionally affected by the cold bora winds in winter and spring.


title: Northern Italy

text: The coldest month is January: the Po valley's mean temperature is between . Winter morning lows can occasionally reach in the Alps and in the Po valley, with records close to near Bologna are some of the coldest winters. Summer is usually more stable, although quite stormy near the Alps, with July temperatures are north of river Po, like in Milan or Venice, and south of river Po can reach like in Bologna.


title: Northern Italy

text: The number of days with lows below is usually from 60 to 90 a year, with peaks of 100–110 days in the mainly rural zones. In the colder winters, the Venice Lagoon may freeze, and in the coldest ones even enough to walk on the ice sheet.


title: Northern Italy

text: Precipitation evenly distributed during the year, although the summer is usually slightly wetter. is more intense in the Prealpine zone, up to annually, but is abundant also in the plains and Alpine zones, with an average of annually. The total annual rainfall is on average . Snow is quite common between early December and early March in cities like Turin, Milan and Bologna, but sometimes it appears in late November or late March and even April. Both the Alps and the Apennine can see up to of snow in a year at ; on the highest peaks of the Alps, snow may fall even during mid summer, and glaciers are present.


title: Northern Italy

text: Because of high industrialization and the lack of wind due to being closed between mountain ranges air pollution remains a severe problem in Northern Italy. Even if smog levels have decreased dramatically since the 1970s and 1980s, in 2005 a team of researchers at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute reported that Northern Italy was one of Europe's most polluted areas in terms of smog and air pollution due to its climatic and geographic conditions, which cause the stagnation of pollutants.


title: Northern Italy

text: In March 2019, the European Space Agency (ESA) published images took from their satellites. These images show a big stain, made of nitrogen dioxide and fine particles, situated above the Po Valley area, which incorporates the city of Milan, Turin, and Bologna. Milan and Turin share high levels of ozone and nitrogen oxides, which are mainly produced by cars diesel and petrol engines. The big stain analyzed by ESA is the main reason why Po valley air pollution levels are so high it is considered nowadays the worst area in Europe for air quality. To shed light on how dangerous it is for humans to live in polluted environments, Chicago Energy Policy Institute has recently developed the Air Quality Life Index (AQLI), a system capable of analyzing air pollution worldwide. According to AQLI findings, Po valley air pollution affects inhabitants so hard that it cuts off about half a year of their life expectancy. The main reasons why there's a big stain of air pollution over the Po valley are strictly connected to livestock and factories. The so-called "NPK fertilizers", made of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, along with manure emissions from intensive breeding and high levels of nitrogen dioxide released by diesel and petrol engines are all accountable for this disastrous air condition in Northern Italy. The region of Lombardy produces also vast amounts of animal waste, a big contributor to pollution. It delivers more than 40 percent of Italy's milk production, for example, while over half of the Italian pig production is located in the Po Valley.


title: Northern Italy

text: According to a research, published in The Lancet Planetary Health in January 2021, which estimates the death rate associated with fine particulate matter (PM) and nitrogen dioxide (NO) pollution in 1000 European cities, Brescia and Bergamo in Lombardy have the highest death rate from fine particulate matter (PM) in Europe. Vicenza (Veneto) and Saronno (Lombardy) are respectively in fourth and eighth place in a top ten of ten cities. Turin and Milan are also at the top of the European ranking – 3rd and 5th respectively – in terms of increased mortality from nitrogen dioxide, a gas that derives mainly from traffic and in particular from diesel vehicles, while Verona, Treviso, Padova, Como and Venice rank eleventh, fourteenth, fifteenth, seventeenth and twentythird respectively.


title: Northern Italy

text: The data show that many cities in the Po Valley suffer the most serious impact at European level due to poor air quality, first of all the metropolitan area of Milan, thirteenth in the ranking in terms of fine particulate impact, where any year 3967 premature deaths – approximately 9% of the total.


title: Northern Italy

text: Northern Italy is dominated by the Gallo-Italic family of languages, as opposed to the rest of the country where the Italo-Romance languages are spoken, and they include Emilian, Ligurian, Lombard, Piedmontese, and Romagnol. Venetian is also considered to be part of the Gallo-Italic group by most linguists, although others may consider it to be part of Italo-Dalmatian or to constitute a different language family.


title: Northern Italy

text: The Gallo-Italic languages also reach the north of the Marche region in central Italy (province of Pesaro and Urbino and the city of Senigallia in province of Ancona) and Tuscany (most of the province of Massa-Carrara and the northernmost areas of Garfagnana in the province of Lucca, but also some parts of the Metropolitan City of Florence), so these areas are considered linguistically part of northern Italy.


title: Northern Italy

text: Other Gallo-Romance languages spoken are Occitan, Arpitan spoken in the Occitan and Arpitan valleys in western Piedmont, and the Rhaeto-Romance group which includes Friulian and Ladin.


title: Northern Italy

text: Non-Romance languages are also spoken: Germanic languages such as "standard" German and Bavarian in South Tyrol, small Walser communities in Piedmont and Valle d'Aosta, and Cimbrian and mochenoin Veneto, Friuli and Trentino. Slavic languages are spoken in Friuli-Venezia Giulia: there are Slovenian minorities in the province of Trieste and in the eastern parts of those of Udine and Gorizia.


title: Northern Italy

text: During the Middle Ages, mainly between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, an illustrious vulgar was in use, by the name of "Lombard-Venetian koiné". In medieval sources it was simply called "written language" or Lombard, because the toponym "Lombardy" was then used to indicate the entire region of northern Italy.


title: Northern Italy

text: Starting from the fifteenth century, the Lombard-Venetian koiné began to give ground with respect to the Tuscan, a phenomenon that Tagliavini describes as follows: "Florentine, thanks to (Dante) and other great Tuscans like Petrarch and Boccaccio, to the central position of Florence and to the historical conditions of the time, gradually spread throughout Italy, also resulting in the disappearance of the High-Italian κοινή, which in the thirteenth century had risen to a certain prestige".


title: Northern Italy

text: This literary koiné manifested itself with authors such as Bonvesin da la Riva, Giacomino da Verona, Uguccione da Lodi, Girardo Patecchio, etc.


title: Northern Italy

text: Northern Italy is the most developed and productive area of the country, with one of the highest GDPs per capita in Europe. It was the first part of Italy to become industrialised in the last half of the 19th century; the so-called "industrial triangle" was formed by the manufacturing centres of Milan and Turin, as well as the seaport of Genoa. Since then, the industrial core of the area has shifted eastward; the current industrial triangle consists of Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna. A similar shift happened for GDP per capita, and the eastern regions (including Lombardy) have since become wealthier than Piedmont and Liguria. With a 2008 nominal GDP estimated at €772,676 million, Northern Italy accounts for 54.8% of the Italian economy, despite having just 45.8% of the population.


title: Northern Italy

text: Aosta Valley, Piedmont, Veneto, Trentino Alto-Adige, Liguria, Friuli-Venezia-Giulia and Lombardy are known as the Alpine regions of Italy, consisting of all of North Italy except for Emilia-Romagna.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia are a topic of concern and controversy internationally. According to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, women in Saudi Arabia experience discrimination in relation to marriage, family, and divorce, despite recent reforms. The Saudi government remains to target and repress women's rights activists and movements. Women's societal roles in Saudi Arabia are heavily affected by Islamic and local traditions of the Arabian Peninsula. Saudi women have experienced major rights reforms since 2017, after facing religious fundamentalist dominance dating from 1979. Prominent feminist campaigns include the Women to Drive Movement and the anti male-guardianship campaign. These campaigns have resulted in significant advances in women's rights. The Hanbali and Wahhabi schools of Sunni Islam, the traditions of the Arabian Peninsula and national and local laws, all impact women's rights in Saudi Arabia.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In the World Economic Forum's "Global Gender Gap Report 2022", Saudi Arabia was ranked 146th out of 153 countries. In the World Bank's 2021 Women, Business, and the Law index, Saudi Arabia scored 80 out of 100, an above-average global score. The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) elected Saudi Arabia to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women for 2018 to 2022, which was widely criticized by the international community. According to the World Bank, Saudi Arabia made significant improvements to working conditions for women between 2017 and 2020, addressing issues of mobility, sexual harassment, pensions, and workplace rights including employment-discrimination protections.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Gender roles in Saudi society come from local culture and interpretations of Sharia. Sharia law, or the divine will, is derived by scholars through interpreting the Quran and hadith (sayings and accounts of Muhammad's life). In Saudi culture, the Sharia is interpreted according to a strict Sunni Islam form known as the way of the Salaf (righteous predecessors) or Wahhabism. The law is mostly unwritten, leaving judges with significant discretionary power, which they usually exercise in favor of tribal traditions. Activists such as Wajeha al-Huwaider compare the condition of Saudi women to slavery.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Varied interpretations often lead to controversy. For example, Sheikh Ahmed Qassim Al-Ghamdi, chief of the Mecca region's Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, also known as the mutaween (religious police), has said that Sharia doesn't prohibit (gender mixing). Meanwhile, Sheikh Abdul Rahman al-Barrak, another prominent cleric, issued a fatwa stating that proponents of should be killed.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: According to the "Encyclopedia of Human Rights", one key notion in Islamic legal theory used to curtail women's rights in Saudi Arabia is sex segregation. This segregation is justified by the Sharia legal notion of 'shielding from corruption' ().


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Many Saudis do not see Islam as the main impediment to women's rights. "It's the culture, not the religion" is a common Saudi saying. According to one female journalist, "If the Qu'ran does not address the subject, then the clerics will err on the side of caution and make it haram [forbidden]. The driving ban for women is the best example." Sabria Jawhar has stated, "if all women were given the rights the Qu'ran guarantees us, and not be supplanted by tribal customs, then the issue of whether Saudi women have equal rights would be reduced."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Saudis often invoke the life of Muhammad to prove that Islam allows for strong women. His first wife, Khadijah, was a powerful businesswoman who employed him and proposed marriage on her own. His wife Aisha commanded an army at the Battle of Bassorah and is the source of many hadiths.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: The level of enforcement can vary by region: Jeddah is relatively permissive, while Riyadh and the surrounding Najd region, origin of the House of Saud, have stricter traditions. Laws that prohibit women from driving aren't usually enforced in rural areas.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Enforcement of the Kingdom's strict moral code, including hijab and separation of the sexes, is often handled by the mutaween (also )—a special committee of Saudi men sometimes called "religious police." Mutaween have some law enforcement powers. For example, mutaween have the power to detain Saudi citizens or resident foreigners for doing anything deemed immoral. While the anti-vice committee is active across the Kingdom, it is particularly active in Riyadh, Buraydah and Tabuk.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: The 1979 Iranian Revolution and subsequent Grand Mosque Seizure in Saudi Arabia caused the government to implement stricter enforcement of Sharia. Saudi women who were adults before 1979 recall driving, inviting unrelated men into their homes (with the door open), and being in public without an abaya or niqab. The subsequent September 11th attacks against the World Trade Center in 2001, on the other hand, are often viewed as precipitating cultural change away from strict fundamentalism.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: The government under King Abdullah was considered reformist. It opened the country's first co-educational university, appointed the first female cabinet member, and passed laws against domestic violence. Women did not gain the right to vote in 2005, but the king supported women's right to drive and vote. Critics say the reform was far too slow and often more symbolic than substantive.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: According to "The Economist", a 2006 Saudi government poll found that 89% of Saudi women did not think women should drive, and 86% did not think women should work with men; however, this was directly contradicted by a 2007 Gallup poll, which found that 66% of Saudi women and 55% of Saudi men agreed that women should be allowed to drive. Moreover, that same poll found that more than 8 in 10 Saudi women (82%) and three-quarters of Saudi men (75%) agreed that women should be allowed to hold any job for which they are qualified.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Five hundred Saudi women attended a 2006 lecture in Riyadh that opposed loosening traditional gender roles and restrictions. Mashael al-Eissa, an Internet writer, opposed reforms. She argued that Saudi Arabia is the closest thing to an ideal and pure Islamic nation, and that it's under threat from "imported Western values."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In 2013, former lecturer Ahmed Abdel-Raheem gave a poll to female students at Al-Lith College for Girls at Umm al-Qura University in Mecca and found that 79% of the participants opposed lifting the driving ban for women. One of the students who took part in the poll commented, "In my point of view, female driving is not a necessity because in the country of the two holy mosques every woman is like a queen. There is [someone] who cares about her; and a woman needs nothing as long as there is a man who loves her and meets her needs; as for the current campaigns calling for women's driving, they are not reasonable. Female driving is a matter of fun and amusement, let us be reasonable and thank God so much for the welfare we live in."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Abdel-Raheem conducted another poll of 8,402 Saudi women, which found that 90% of women supported the male guardianship system. Another poll conducted by Saudi students found that 86% of Saudi women do not want the driving ban to be lifted. A Gallup poll in 2006, in eight predominantly Muslim countries, found that only in Saudi Arabia did the majority of women not agree that women should be allowed to hold political office.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Some Saudi women who have been supportive of traditional gender roles, including educated women, have insisted that loosening the bans on women driving and working with men is part of an onslaught of Westernized ideas meant to weaken Islam. Many have also taken the position that Saudi Arabia is uniquely in need of conservative values because it is the center of Islam. Some Saudi female advocates of government reform reject foreign criticism of Saudi limitations upon rights for "failing to understand the uniqueness of Saudi society."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Journalist Maha Akeel, a frequent critic of her government's restrictions on women, states that Western critics do not understand Saudi Arabia. "Look, we are not asking for...women's rights according to Western values or lifestyles...We want things according to what Islam says. Look at our history, our role models." According to former "Arab News" managing editor John R. Bradley, Western pressure for broadened rights is counterproductive, particularly pressure from the United States, given the "intense anti-American sentiment in Saudi Arabia after September 11."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Under previous Saudi law, all females were required to have a male guardian (), typically a father, brother, husband, or uncle (). In 2019, this law was partially amended to exclude women over 21 years old from the requirement of a male guardian. The new amendment also granted women rights in relation to the guardianship of minor children. Previously, girls and women were forbidden from traveling, conducting official business, or undergoing certain medical procedures without permission from their male guardians. In 2019, Saudi Arabia allowed women to travel abroad, register for divorce or marriage, and apply for official documents without the permission of a male guardian.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Male guardians have duties to, and rights over, women in many aspects of civic life. A United Nations Special Rapporteur report states:"Legal guardianship of women by a male is practiced in varying degrees and encompasses major aspects of women's lives. The system is said to emanate from social conventions, including the importance of protecting women, and from religious precepts on travel and marriage, although these requirements were arguably confined to particular situations."The official law, if not the custom, requiring a guardian's permission for a woman to seek employment was repealed in 2008.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In 2012, the Saudi government implemented a new policy to help enforce these traveling restrictions for women. Under this policy, Saudi Arabian men receive a text message on their mobile phones whenever a woman under their custody leaves the country, even if she is traveling with her guardian. Saudi Arabian feminist activist Manal al-Sharif commented that "[t]his is technology used to serve backwardness in order to keep women imprisoned."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Every year, more than 1,000 women try to flee Saudi Arabia. Text alerts, sent by the Saudi authorities, enable many guardians to catch women before they actually escape. Bethany Vierra, a 31-year-old American woman, became the latest victim of the "male guardianship" system, as she was trapped in Saudi Arabia with her 4-year-old daughter, Zaina, despite the divorce from her Saudi husband.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Guardianship requirements are not written law; they are applied according to the customs and understanding of particular officials and institutions (hospitals, police stations, banks, etc.). Official transactions and grievances initiated by women are often abandoned because officers, or the women themselves, believe they need authorization from the woman's guardian. Officials may demand the presence of a guardian if a woman cannot show an ID card or is fully covered. These conditions make complaints against the guardians themselves extremely difficult.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In 2008, Rowdha Yousef and other Saudi women launched a petition "My Guardian Knows What's Best for Me," which gathered over 5,000 signatures. The petition defended the status quo and requested punishment for activists who demand "equality between men and women, [and] mingling between men and women in mixed environments."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In 2016, Saudis filed the first petition to end male guardianship, signed by over 14,500 people. Women's rights supporter Aziza Al-Yousef delivered it in person to the Saudi royal court.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Liberal activists reject guardianship and find it demeaning to women. They object to being treated like "subordinates" and "children". They point to women whose guardians ended their careers, and those who lost their children because they lacked custody rights. The courts recognize obedience to the father as law, even in cases involving adult daughters. Saudi activist Wajeha al-Huwaider agrees that most Saudi men are caring, but "it's the same kind of feeling they have for handicapped people or for animals. The kindness comes from pity, from lack of respect." She compares male guardianship to slavery:


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: "The ownership of a woman is passed from one man to another. Ownership of the woman is passed from the father or the brother to another man, the husband. The woman is merely a piece of merchandise, which is passed over to someone else—her guardian. Ultimately, I think women are greatly feared. When I compare the Saudi man with other Arab men, I can say that the Saudi is the only man who could not compete with the woman. He could not compete, so what did he do with her? The woman has capabilities. When women study, they compete with the men for jobs. All jobs are open to men. 90% of them are open to men. You do not feel any competition. If you do not face competition from the Saudi woman, you have the entire scene for yourself. All positions and jobs are reserved for you. Therefore, you are a spoiled and self-indulged man."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: The absurdity of the guardianship system, according to Huwaider, is shown by what would happen if she tried to remarry: "I would have to get the permission of my son."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: The Saudi government has approved international and domestic declarations regarding women's rights and insists that there is no law of male guardianship. Officially, it maintains that international agreements are applied in the courts. International organizations and NGOs, on the other hand, are skeptical: "The Saudi government is saying one thing to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva but doing another thing inside the Kingdom," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. Saudi interlocutors told a UN investigator that international agreements carry little to no weight in Saudi courts.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In 2017, when the Kingdom was elected to the UN women's rights commission, several human rights organizations disapproved of the decision. UN Watch director Hillel Neuer called the decision "absurd" and compared it to "making an arsonist into the town fire chief". Swedish foreign minister Margot Wallström said that Saudi Arabia "ought to be [there] to learn something about women".


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In May 2017, King had passed an order allowing women to obtain government services such as education and health care without the need of permission from a guardian.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In 2019, Saudi Arabia took new measures that allow women to travel abroad without needing permission. In August 2019, a royal decree was published in the Saudi official gazette "Umm al-Qura" that would allow Saudi women over 21 to travel abroad without permission from a male guardian. Several other liberalizing measures were also included in the decree; however, it is unclear whether these measures have officially come into force.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In April 2020, HRW reported that a number of Saudi women using pseudonyms on Twitter had stated demands for the abolition of the male guardianship system and sexual harassment. The rights organization cited that women complained that any attempt to flee abuse was not possible. Women fleeing abuse can still be arrested and forcibly returned to family members.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: On 16 August 2022, a female Saudi Arabian university student was sentenced to 34 years in prison for following and retweeting dissidents and activists on Twitter.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: On 31 August 2022, a viral online footage from an orphanage in Khamis Mushait showed Saudi security forces, including some wearing civilian clothes, chasing and attacking women with tasers, belts and sticks. The footage lead to a national and global outcry prompting the Saudi Public Prosecution to opening an investigation into the incident. A research by European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights has found that protests at similar facilities have led to harsh prison sentences for those involved.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: According to the "Global Gender Gap Report," only 24.6% of females are labor force participants; 16.4% of them are legislators, senior officials, and managers; and 0% are in ministerial positions. Many citizens do not want to modernize traditions, perceiving it to be sinful. Therefore, many women suffer from restrictions and injustices. Moreover, only a small number of Saudi women publicly oppose the male guardianship system and speak about the violations of their rights.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: The Saudi government's smartphone application Absher allows men to control whether women under their guardianship can travel outside the kingdom. It also sends a man alerts if a woman under his guardianship uses her passport at the border. In 2019, Absher received severe criticism. Many international communities and human rights organizations demanded its removal from Google and Apple web stores. Some critics include US Rep. Katherine Clark and Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who called the app a "patriarchal weapon". US Senator Ron Wyden demanded the app's immediate removal. He called the Kingdom's control over women "abhorrent." Apple and Google agreed to investigate the app. However, following a thorough investigation, Google refused to remove the app from its web store, citing that the app doesn't violate the company's terms and conditions. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch accused Apple and Google of helping "enforce gender apartheid" by hosting the app.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Some Saudi women say that the Absher app has made their lives easier as everything can be processed online, allowing, for instance, travel approval from a guardian in another city. Human rights critics see the app as a way of normalizing patriarchal control and tracking women's movements.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Male guardianship is closely related to (or in a Bedouin context), roughly translated as "honor." It also carries connotations of modesty and respectability. The of a male includes the protection of the females in his family. He provides for them, and in turn, the women's honor (sometimes called ) reflects on him. is a common feature of many different patriarchal societies.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Since the of a male guardian is affected by that of the women under his care, he is expected to control their behavior. If their honor is lost, especially in the eyes of the community, he has lost control of them. Threats to chastity, in particular, are threats to the of the male guardian. can be associated with honor killing.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In 2007, a young woman was murdered by her father for chatting with a man on Facebook. The case attracted widespread media attention. Conservatives called for the government to ban Facebook, on the basis that it incites lust and encourages gender mingling.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: A hijab is a traditional Islamic norm whereby women are expected "to draw their outer garments around them (when they go out or are among men)" and dress in a modest manner. Previously, the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, sometimes known as the religious police, has been known to patrol public places with volunteers focused on enforcing strict rules of hijab. With the 2016 reforms of Mohammed bin Salman, the power of the CPVPV was drastically reduced, and it was banned "from pursuing, questioning, asking for identification, arresting and detaining anyone suspected of a crime."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Among non-mahram men, women must cover the parts of the body that are (not meant to be exposed). In much of Islam, a woman's face is not considered ; however, in Saudi Arabia, and some other Arab states, all of the body is considered except for the hands and eyes. Accordingly, most women are expected to wear the hijab (head covering), a full black cloak called an , and a face-veil called niqab. Many historians and Islamic scholars hold that the custom, if not requirement, of the veil predates Islam in parts of the region. They argue that the Quran was interpreted to require the veil as part of adapting it to tribal traditions.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: The strictness of the dress code varies by region. In Jeddah, for example, many women go out with their faces and hair uncovered; Riyadh is more conservative by comparison. Some shops sell designer that have elements such as flared sleeves or a tighter form. Fashionable come in colors other than black and may be decorated with patterns and glitter. According to one designer, are "no longer just . Today, they reflect a woman's taste and personality."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Although the dress code is often regarded in the West as a highly visible symbol of oppression, Saudi women place the dress code low on the list of priorities for reform and some leave it off entirely. Journalist Sabria Jawhar complains in "The Huffington Post" that Western readers of her blog are obsessed with her veil. She calls the niqab "trivial":


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Some women say they want to wear a veil. They cite Islamic piety, pride in family traditions, and less sexual harassment from male colleagues. For many women, the dress code is a part of the right to modesty that Islam guarantees women. Some also perceive attempts at reform as anti-Islamic intrusion by Westerners. Faiza al-Obaidi, a Saudi biology professor, said: "They fear Islam, and we are the world's foremost Islamic nation."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In 2002, multiple schoolgirls burned to death because religious policemen, who saw that they weren't veiled, prohibited them from fleeing.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In 2014, a female anchor became the first to appear on Saudi state television without a headscarf. She was reporting as a news anchor from London for the Al Ekhbariya channel.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In 2017, a woman was arrested for appearing in a viral video dressed in a short skirt and halter top while walking around an ancient fort in Ushayqir. She was released following international outcry. A few months earlier, a Saudi woman was detained for a short while after she appeared in public without a hijab; although she did not wear a crop top or short skirt, she was still arrested.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Saudi Arabian women are misrepresented in mainstream political and media discourse. Most westerners rarely directly interact with them or lack knowledge of the culture in the Middle East. Hence, they form their perspective on Saudi Arabian women and ignore their points of view on their rights and position in society.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Media discourse on women's rights in Saudi Arabia is based on female stereotypes. Journalists lack an understanding of Middle Eastern culture and concentrate on the depiction of negative news, which is likely to impress people. According to Rochelle Terman states that Muslim women appear in media only when they live in a society where their rights are disrespected. Therefore, many westerners regard any veiled female as abused and helpless and are used to the thought that it is normal to oppress them.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: This results from a negative attitude toward Saudi Arabian women and men; hence, many westerners perceive them as "others". It leads to misleading representation and influences the action of political leaders in the western world. Despite their eagerly supporting Saudi Arabian women and the recent reforms in the country publicly. But, on earning the approval of their voters. Overall, the misleading representation and the focus on the negative harm of the elimination of gender inequalities in Saudi Arabia.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: There are certain limitations on businesswomen in Saudi Arabia. Although now able to drive motor vehicles, a woman still can't swear for herself in a court of law; a man has to swear for her. However, as part of the Saudi 2030 Vision, women have recently been encouraged to buy and own houses, either with a partner or independently. This is part of Saudi Arabi's plan to increase Saudi ownership of houses to 70% by 2030.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: According to The World Bank's Women, Business and the Law 2020 study, which tracks how laws affect women in 190 economies, scored Saudi Arabia's economy 70.6 points out of 100, a dramatic increase from its previous score of 31.8 points. "2019 was a year of 'groundbreaking' reforms that allowed women greater economic opportunity in Saudi Arabia, according to the study's findings," said an Al Arabiya article on the report.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: "Vision 2030" is introducing women to new levels of leadership and economic empowerment. In Saudi Arabia, women entrepreneurs are now managing more small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The number of female entrepreneurs has increased more than 35% over the last decade in 2017.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Alhanoof Alzahrani, the co‑founder of Saudi Arabia’s first crowdfunding company, "Scopeer", expressed her excitement and optimism about the rising opportunities presented for Saudi women in the business said: “Amid the economic diversification and push for women’s empowerment, opportunities are everywhere. You just must be creative and willing to take risks.” Alhanoof added that the technology sector in Saudi Arabia will offer pockets of opportunity for local and foreign investors, saying: “The country’s push for digitalization is expected to generate demand for technology talents, as well as service providers in supporting technology development. We are more than happy to establish collaboration with Hong Kong, which is known to be a technology and innovation hub in Asia.”


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Several initiatives and programmes have been launched in the country to promote and support entrepreneurship among young Saudi women. The General Authority of Small & Medium Enterprises (Monshaat), has introduced a loan guarantee programme and regulation to reduce the administrative burden on SMEs. Workshops and training programmes are also offered to promote entrepreneurial culture among women university students under the Badir Technology Incubators and Accelerators Program.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: According to the Saudi General Authority for Statistics, Saudi women constitute 33.2% of the native workforce as of 2020. The rate of participation has grown from 14% in 1990 to 33.2% in 2020. Between 2018 and 2020, the proportion of women in the native workforce increased from 20.2% to 33.2%. In February 2019, a report was released indicating that 48% of Saudi nationals working in the retail sector were women.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Some critics complain that women's skills aren't being effectively used, since women make up 70% of students in Saudi institutes of higher education. Some jobs taken by women in almost every other country are reserved for men in Saudi Arabia. For example, the Saudi delegation to the United Nations International Women's Year conference in Mexico City in 1975 and the Decade for Women conference in Nairobi in 1985 were made up entirely of men. Geraldine Brooks wrote, "Even jobs directly concerned with women's affairs were held by men."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Historically, women's employment has been restricted under Saudi law and culture. In 2006, the Labor Minister Dr. Ghazi Al-Qusaibi said:


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: "The [Labor] Ministry is not acting to [promote] women's employment since the best place for a woman to serve is in her own home ... therefore no woman will be employed without the explicit consent of her guardian. We will also make sure that the [woman's] job will not interfere with her work at home with her family, or with her eternal duty of raising her children ..."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Furthermore, women's work must also have been deemed suitable for the female physique and mentality. Women have been allowed to work only in capacities in which they can exclusively serve women; there must have been no contact or interaction with the opposite gender. A woman's work should not cause her to travel without a close male relative. This has presented considerable problems, as women were not been allowed to drive motor vehicles until 2018, and little to no public transportation exists in the Kingdom. Before women were allowed to drive, most working women traveled to work without a male relative out of necessity.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Consequently, until 2005, women only worked as doctors, nurses, teachers, women's bankers, and in a few other special situations in which they only had contact with women. Almost all of these women had college and graduate degrees and were employed either in schools, where men were not permitted to teach girls, or in hospitals, because conservative families prefer that female doctors and nurses treat their wives, sisters, and daughters. Jobs such as judges and positions of high public office were forbidden to women.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Women's banks, which first opened in 1980, gave women a place to put their money without having to have any contact with men. These banks employ women exclusively for every position, except for the guards posted at the door to see that no men enter by mistake. Author Geraldine Brooks wrote, "Usually a guard was married to one of the women employees inside, so that if documents had to be delivered, he could deal with his wife rather than risking even the slight contact taking place between unmarried members of the opposite sex." According to Mona al-Munajjed, a senior advisor with Booz & Company's Ideation Center, the number of Saudi women working in banking grew from 972 in 2000 to 3,700 in 2008.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: While the Labor Minister Al-Qusaibi stressed the need for women to stay at home, he also stated that "there is no option but to start [finding] jobs for the millions of women" in Saudi Arabia. Previously, the Labor Ministry banned the employment of men or non-Saudi women in lingerie shops and other stores where women's garments and perfumes are sold. This policy started in 2005 when the Ministry announced they would be staffing lingerie shops with women. Since the shops served female customers, employing women would prevent the mixing of sexes in public (). Many Saudi women also disliked discussing the subject of their undergarments with male shop clerks.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: This move was met with opposition from within the ministry and from conservative Saudis, who argued the presence of women outside the home encouraged (mixing of sexes) and that, according to their interpretation of Sharia, a woman's work outside the house is against her (natural state). The few shops that employed women were "quickly closed by the religious police." Women responded by boycotting lingerie shops, and in June 2011, King Abdullah issued another decree giving lingerie shops one year to replace male workers with women. This was followed by similar decrees for shops and shop departments specializing in other products for women such as cosmetics, and wedding dresses. The decrees came at "the height of the Arab Spring" and were "widely interpreted" by activists as an attempt to preempt "pro-democracy protests." The policy has led to further clashes. Conservatives and religious police officers are on one side of the clash; the Ministry and female customers and employees of female-staffed stores are on the other. In 2013, the Ministry and the religious police leadership met to negotiate new terms. In November 2013, 200 religious police signed a letter stating that female employment was causing such a drastic increase in instances of that "their job was becoming impossible."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: When women find jobs also held by men, they often find it difficult to break into full-time work with employee benefits including allowances, health insurance and social security. According to a report in the "Saudi Gazette", an employer told a female reporter that her health insurance coverage did not include care for childbirth, but a male employee was given such coverage for his wife.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Saudi women are now seen developing professional careers as doctors, teachers and even business leaders, a process described in 2007 by ABC News as "painfully slow." One such female professional is Dr. Selwa Al-Hazzaa, head of the ophthalmology department at King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh, and in Lubna Olayan, named by "Forbes" and "Time" magazines as one of the Arab world's most influential businesswomen.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Some "firsts" in Saudi women's employment occurred in 2013, when the Kingdom registered its first female trainee lawyer, Arwa al-Hujaili; its first female lawyer to be granted an official license from its Ministry of Justice, Bayan Mahmoud Al-Zahran; and the first female Saudi police officer, Ayat Bakhreeba. Bakhreeba earned her master's degree in public law from the Dubai Police Academy and is the first woman to obtain a degree from that academy. Furthermore, her thesis on "children’s rights in the Saudi system" was chosen as the best research paper by the police academy. Additionally, in 2019, Yasmeen Al Maimani was the first Saudi woman to be a commercial pilot.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: A World Bank report found that, since 2017, Saudi Arabia has made "the biggest improvement globally" in issues of women's mobility, sexual harassment, retirement age and economic activity. The Kingdom fixed women's retirement age to 60, the same as men, stretching their earnings and contribution. According to Al Arabiya, "Amendments were adopted to protect women from discrimination in employment, to prohibit employers from dismissing a woman during her pregnancy and maternity leave, and to prohibit gender-based discrimination in accessing financial services."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Saudi Arabia opened non-combat military jobs to women in February 2018. This followed a series of reforms enacted by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman to advance the rights of women in Saudi Arabia.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In January 2020, the chief of staff of the Saudi Arabian Armed Forces, General Fayyadh Al-Ruwaili, inaugurated the first women's military wing in the country's armed forces, allowing women to join combat military positions in all branches of the armed forces.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In 2021, female literacy was estimated to be 93%, not far behind that of men. The 2021 data is a stark contrast to 1970, when only 2% of women and 15% of men were literate. More women receive secondary and tertiary education than men; 56% of all university graduates in Saudi Arabia were women as of 2019, and in 2008, 50% of working women had a college education, compared to 16% of working men. As of 2019, Saudi women make up 34.4% of the native work force of Saudi Arabia. The proportion of Saudi women graduating from universities is higher than in Western countries.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: One of Saudi Arabia's official educational policies is to promote "belief in the one God, Islam as the way of life, and Muhammad as God's Messenger." Official policy particularly emphasizes religion in the education of girls: "The purpose of educating a girl is to bring her up in a proper Islamic way so as to perform her duty in life, be an ideal and successful housewife and a good mother, ready to do things which suit her nature such as teaching, nursing and medical treatment." The policy also specifies "women's right[s] to obtain suitable education on equal footing with men in light of Islamic laws."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Public education in Saudi Arabia is sex-segregated at all levels, and in general, females and males do not attend the same school. Moreover, men are forbidden from teaching or working at girls' schools, and women were not allowed to teach at boys' schools until 2019.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Saudi Arabia is the home of Princess Nora bint Abdul Rahman University, the world's largest women-only university. Religious beliefs about gender roles and the perception that education is more relevant for men has resulted in fewer educational opportunities for women. The tradition of sex segregation in professional life is used to justify restricting women's fields of study. Traditionally, women have been excluded from studying engineering, pharmacy, architecture, and law.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: This has changed slightly in recent years; in 2021, nearly 60% of all Saudi university students were female. Some fields, such as law and pharmacy, are beginning to open up for women. Though Saudi women can also study any subject they wish while abroad, the customs of male guardianship and purdah curtail women's ability to study abroad. In 1992, three times as many men studied abroad on government scholarships, although the ratio had been near 50% in the early 1980s.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Women are encouraged to study for service industries or social sciences. Education, medicine, public administration, natural sciences, social sciences, and Islamic studies are deemed appropriate for women. Of all female university graduates in 2007, 93% had degrees in education or social sciences.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, which opened in September 2009, is Saudi Arabia's first coeducational campus where men and women study alongside each other. Women attend classes with men, drive on campus, and are not required to veil themselves. In its inaugural year, 15% of the students were female, all of whom had studied at foreign universities. Classes are taught in English.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: The opening of the university sparked public debate. Sheikh Ahmed Qassim Al-Ghamdi, the controversial ex-chief of the Makkah region's mutaween, claimed that gender segregation has no basis in Sharia, or Islamic law, and has been incorrectly applied in the Saudi judicial system. Al-Ghamdi said that hadith, the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, makes no references to gender segregation; he argues that therefore, mixing is therefore permitted under Sharia. After this statement, there were many calls for (and rumors of) his dismissal.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Technology is a central part of higher education for women. Many women's colleges use distance education to compensate for women's poor access to transportation. Male lecturers are not allowed to lecture at women's classes, and since there are few female lecturers, some universities use videoconferencing to have male professors teach female students without face-to-face contact.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Child marriage is another factor that hinders women's education. A child wife's responsibilities, such as housework and child-bearing, are too burdensome for her to continue school. The dropout rate of girls increases around puberty, as they drop out of school upon marriage. Roughly 25% of college-aged young women do not attend college, and from 2005 to 2006, women had a 60% dropout rate.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In 2009, the King appointed Norah al-Faiz as deputy minister for women's education; she was the first female cabinet-level official.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In July 2020, Saudi Minister of Education, Hamad bin Mohammed Al Al-Sheikh, appointed Lilac AlSafadi as president of the Saudi Electronic University. She is the first female president of a co-ed Saudi university.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Saudi Arabia was one of the few countries in the 2008 Olympics without a female delegation, although female athletes do exist.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In June 2012, the Saudi Arabian Embassy in London announced that female athletes would compete in the Olympics in 2012 in London, England, for the first time. Saudi blogger Eman al-Nafjan commented that as of 2012, Saudi girls are prevented from sports education at school and that Saudi women have very little access to sports facilities. She also said that the two Saudi women who participated in the 2012 Olympics, runner Sarah Attar (who grew up in the United States) and judoka Wojdan Shaherkani, attracted both criticism and support on Twitter; and that Jasmine Alkhaldi, a Filipino swimmer born to a Saudi father, was widely supported by the online Saudi community.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In their article "Saudi Arabia to let women into sports stadiums," Emanuella Grinberg and Jonny Hallam explain that conservative Saudis adhere to the strictest interpretation of Sunni Islam in the world. Under their guardianship system, women cannot travel or play sports without permission from their male guardians. Some of these strict rules in Saudi Arabia have started to change. Mohammed bin Salman declared that by 2018, women would be allowed into sports stadiums. In September 2017, women were allowed to enter King Fahd Stadium for the first time for a celebration commemorating the Kingdom's 87th anniversary. They were seated in a specific section for families. Though welcomed by many, the move drew backlash from conservatives holding on to the country's strict gender segregation rules.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: When WWE began holding Saudi Arabia in 2018, the company initially announced that female wrestlers would not be allowed to participate. On October 30, 2019, the promotion announced that Lacey Evans and Natalya would take part in the country's first professional wrestling match involving women at that year's edition of WWE Crown Jewel. However, both wrestlers had to substitute their usual revealing attire for bodysuits that covered their arms and legs.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In January 2020, Saudi Arabia hosted the Spanish Super Cup for the first time. The tournament hosted Barcelona, Valencia, Atlético Madrid and Real Madrid as the four participants. During the first match of the competition between Real Madrid and Valencia on January 8, Amnesty International workers gathered in front of the Saudi Embassy in Madrid and called for the release of Saudi women rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul and ten other activists. The rights group also informed the public that the match day marked Loujain's 600th day in detention. In January 2020, Human Rights Watch, along with 12 other international human rights organizations, wrote a joint letter to Amaury Sport Organisation ahead of Saudi Dakar Rally. The rights group in their statement urged ASO to use their decision to denounce the persecution of women's rights in the nation. The HRW's statement read, "The Amaury Sport Organisation and race drivers at the Dakar Rally should speak out about the Saudi government’s mistreatment of women’s rights activists for advocating for the right to drive."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: On September 29, 2020, Amnesty International raised concerns about the women's rights situation in Saudi Arabia, where a Ladies European Tour event was going to take place in November. The organization also urged those who were participating to show solidarity with the activists jailed in Saudi Arabia.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In December 2022, Saudi Arabia decided on biding to host Women’s Asian Cup in 2026. Monika Staab, the manager of the Saudi Arabian women’s national team, said: “This is an opportunity to bring the tournament to life, inspire a generation, and turbo-charge the continued growth of women’s football".


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In 2019, following suggesitons made in 2017, Saudi women were given the ability to travel abroad freely without permission from male guardians. As of August 2019, women over 21 can travel abroad without male permission.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Many of the laws controlling women also apply to citizens of other countries who are relatives of Saudi men. For example, the following groups require a male guardian's permission to leave the country: foreign women married to Saudi men, adult foreign women who are the unmarried daughters of Saudi fathers, and foreign boys under the age of 21 with a Saudi father.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In 2013, Saudi women were allowed to ride bicycles for the first time, although only around parks and other "recreational areas." Female cyclists must be dressed in full body coverings and be accompanied by a male relative. A 2012 film named "Wadjda" highlighted this issue.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Until June 2018, women were not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia was the only country in the world at the time with such a restriction. On September 26, 2017, King Salman decreed that women would be allowed to obtain driver's licenses in the Kingdom, which would effectively grant women the right to drive, within the next year. Salman's decision was backed by a majority of the Council of Senior Religious Scholars. Salman's orders gave responsible departments 30 days to prepare reports for implementation, with the goal of removing the ban on women's driver's licenses by June 2018. Newspaper editorials in support of the decree claimed that women were allowed to ride camels in the time of Muhammad. The ban was lifted on June 24, 2018, and more than 120,000 women applied for driver's licenses that day.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: The UN Human Rights Office said, "The decision to allow women in Saudi Arabia to drive is a first major step towards women's autonomy and independence, but much remains to be done to deliver gender equality in the Kingdom." Human rights expert Philip Alston and the UN Working Group on discrimination of women encouraged the Saudi regime to demonstrate further reform by repealing other discriminatory laws.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Saudi Arabia technically had no written ban on women driving prior to 2018, but Saudi law requires citizens to use a locally issued license while in the country. Such licenses had not been issued to women, making it effectively illegal for women to drive. Until 2017, most Saudi scholars and religious authorities declared women driving haram (forbidden). Commonly given reasons for the prohibition on women driving included:


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: During the ban on female drivers, many women in rural areas still drove. According to one Saudi native, rural women drove "because their families' survival depends on it," and because the mutaween "can't effectively patrol" remote areas. However, in 2010, mutaween were clamping down on this freedom.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Critics of the ban argued that it violated gender segregation customs by needlessly forcing women to take taxis with male drivers or ride with male chauffeurs; that it was an inordinate financial burden on families, causing the average woman to spend half her income on taxis; that it impeded the education and employment of women, as students and workers generally need to commute; that male drivers have been a frequent source of complaints of sexual harassment; and that the public transport system is widely regarded as unreliable and dangerous.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: On November 6, 1990, 47 Saudi women, who had valid licenses issued by other countries, drove through the streets of Riyadh to protest the ban on Saudi women drivers. The women were eventually surrounded by curious onlookers, then stopped by traffic police, who took them into custody. They were released after their male guardians signed statements that they would not drive again, but thousands of leaflets with their names and their husbands' names – with the words "whores" and "pimps" scrawled next to them – circulated around the city. These women were suspended from jobs, had their passports confiscated, and were told not to speak to the press. About a year after the protest, they returned to work and recovered their passports, but they were kept under surveillance and passed over for promotions.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In 2008, women to drive advocates in Saudi Arabia collected about 1,000 signatures, hoping to persuade King Abdullah to lift the ban, but they were unsuccessful. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia said that he thought women would drive when the society was ready for it:


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: "I believe strongly in the rights of women. My mother is a woman. My sister is a woman. My daughter is a woman. My wife is a woman. I believe the day will come when women will drive. In fact if you look at the areas of Saudi Arabia, the desert, and in the rural areas, you will find that women do drive. The issue will require patience. In time I believe that it will be possible. I believe that patience is a virtue."


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: On International Women's Day 2008, the Saudi feminist activist Wajeha al-Huwaider posted a YouTube video of herself driving in a rural area, where female drivers were tolerated, and requesting a universal right for women to drive. She commented: "I would like to congratulate every group of women that has been successful in gaining rights. And I hope that every woman that remains fighting for her rights receives them soon." Another women's driving campaign started during the 2011 Saudi Arabian protests when Al-Huwaider filmed Manal al-Sharif driving in Khobar and published the video on YouTube and Facebook.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: Many skeptics believed that allowing women the right to drive could lead to Western-style openness and an erosion of traditional values.


title: Women's rights in Saudi Arabia

text: In September 2011, a woman from Jeddah was sentenced to ten lashes by whip for driving a car. In contrast to this punishment, Maha al-Qahtani, the first woman in Saudi Arabia to receive a traffic ticket, was only fined for a traffic violation. The whipping was the first time a woman was punished under the law for driving. Previously, when women were found driving, they would normally be questioned and let go after they signed a pledge not to drive again. The whipping sentence followed months of protests by female activists, and just two days after, King Abdullah announced greater political participation for women in the future. King Abdullah overturned the woman's sentence.