KHALID HAMOUD ALKAHTANI
COLOMBO : Basic Law of Governance in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia stipulates that the governance in the Kingdom is based on justice, consultation, and equality, and that the state protects human rights in accordance with Islamic law. On this basis, the Kingdom’s systems and institutions come together to form a legal and institutional framework that promotes and protects human rights. The Kingdom has established a Human Rights Commission in 2005. It is a government body directly linked to the Prime Minister, and is concerned with protecting and promoting human rights in general. Under its organization, the Commission has broad powers that allow it to perform its tasks independently and freely, including oversight and follow-up, redress, provision of advice, awareness and education, with National, regional and international cooperation.
Among the most prominent areas of human rights in the Kingdom are: the right to security, right to health, right to work, rights of women, children, people with disabilities and the elderly, right to development, enhancing participation in political and public life, forming and supporting civil associations, and a number of other social and economic rights.
Human rights institutions and national bodies have also received international attention over the past decades, as the world celebrates this year the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which includes among its tools, the Human Rights Council, which was established in 2006 to support, promote and protect all human rights without discrimination and provide recommendations in this regard. The Kingdom is a party to basic conventions of the United Nations in the field of human rights, which are: the Convention on Rights of the Child, Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination against women, Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in addition to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child related to the involvement of children in armed conflict, Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on complaints, and Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child regarding the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography and the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, all of which are related – directly or indirectly – to women’s rights.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has made great efforts to preserve human rights in all human rights fields, whether civil, public, or private, and has ensured their application and preservation for all groups and individuals of society, whether they are citizens, residents, or visitors to the country, which is confirmed by the inclusion of the Basic Law of Governance a large number of articles concerned with human rights and their preservation. In terms of the objectives of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030, over the past few years, the Kingdom has witnessed broad and qualitative legislative reforms in various fields, including the field of women’s rights, which contributed to activating the legal framework to promote and protect women’s rights, empower them, and eliminate discrimination against them. The most prominent of which is the issuance of the Personal Status Law and establishment of the Family Affairs Council in 2016, in order to undertake the task of taking care of family affairs in the Kingdom, the issuance of the regulation of the Authority for the Care of Persons with Disabilities in 2018, with the aim of caring for and protecting this group, including women and girls with disabilities, amendment of the Civil Status Law and the labor system in order to ensure the equality among all in rights, duties, and conditions of service, which confirms that the work is a right for all Saudi citizens and it is not permissible to discriminate between them on the basis of gender, disability, age, or any other form of discrimination, and amendment of the social insurance system, in a way that achieves equality between men and women at the retirement age. The Saudi Community Sports Federation is empowering the community members, including women and girls, to practice sports activities and allowing women to enter sports facilities on an equal basis with men. The participation of Saudi women in the 2016 Olympic Games, launching of the “Women Empowerment” initiative by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development, and launching the Women’s Leadership Training Initiative in cooperation.” The writer is the Saudi Ambassador to Sri Lanka
