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Saudi Women are Now Submitting the First Passport Applications After End to Travel Restrictions

Photographed by Domen / Van De Velde for Vogue Arabia December 2018.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has implemented its end to the travel restrictions on women. On Monday, August 19, hundreds of Saudi women reportedly crossed into Bahrain unaccompanied, while the following day, the Kingdom’s passport department began accepting applications from women aged 21 and above.

“The passport department has started receiving applications for women aged 21 and above to issue or renew passports and to travel outside the kingdom without permission,” the department said on Twitter.

Earlier this month, according to a decree signed by King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, Saudi Arabian women had been allowed to hold passports and travel abroad without permission from a “male guardian.”

The decision hailed as “one giant leap for Saudi women” by Saudi Gazette was also applauded by HRH Reema bint Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the Kingdom’s ambassador to the US. “These new regulations are history in the making. They call for the equal engagement of women and men in our society. It is a holistic approach to gender equality that will unquestionably create real change for Saudi women,” she wrote in a series of tweets. Adding: “Women have always played an integral role in our country’s development, and they will continue to do so moving forward on equal footing with their male counterparts.”

Other amended regulations also granted women in the country more control over family matters. Saudi women now have the right to register childbirth, marriage or divorce and to be issued official family documents, as well as be recognized as a guardian to children who are minors.

These sweeping landmark reforms are a part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman‘s Vision 2030 for the Kingdom announced in 2016. This includes the lifting of the driving ban on women last year, around which Crown Prince Mohammed also indicated he favored ending the male guardian system.

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