Would it surprise you to know that women in Saudi Arabia need a male guardian s permission to get married? Or that if they want to divorce, they have to justify it to a male judge s satisfaction, even though husbands may divorce with neither justification nor judicial decree? Did you know that a Saudi woman s testimony in court is worth only half that of a man’s? A woman s child custody can be revoked if she doesn t dress what is deemed modestly enough to male superiors or if she works full time or remarries.
Many of those practices stem from a particularly strict interpretation of Muslim Sharia law called Wahhabism, according to Human Rights Watch, which says Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world to completely observe it. The Saudi government denies those practices are in the law.