Riyadh: Women in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are all set to take over administrative duties in all personal status courts in the Dammam region, local media reported on Monday.
Noura Al-Ghunaim, director of the Women’s Department at the Saudi Ministry of Justice, said that this step comes as part of a restructuring program to gradually replace male clerical staff with females to perform a set of administrative tasks.
Prior to the restructuring, the Dammam court employed only six female members of staff. “The number has jumped to 116 in only six months,” Arab News reported.
The Eastern Province City Court is now working with only 116 female employees, and the authorities plan to offer the same job opportunities to women in all personal status courts in the kingdom.
The project aims to improve the working environment within the courts and implement modern operational methods to reflect the continuous development of the justice sector, accelerate the judicial process and provide better service to the public. This is in line with the National Transformation Program and Vision 2030.
During the past six months, the ministry has trained female workers who were given specialist training in all aspects of managing judicial and administrative departments.
The faculty members are well qualified with degrees in Islamic law, management and sociology. It is reported that over a six-month period, these female employees completed 107,000 job tasks.
The country in recent years adopted several reforms to empower women, including ensuring that women can drive cars, enter playgroups and stadiums, and pursue occupations that were previously accessible only to men.
After the transition to allow Saudi women to travel in the kingdom, from 2019 onwards Saudi Arabian women can also travel abroad without permission and may apply for their passports, ID documents and all official registrations directly without requiring a male guardian (mahram).
In February 2021, Saudi Arabia opened up military posts for women for the first time which allowed them to report through a unified portal.
In a first, Saudi female officers were allowed to guard Islam’s holiest site not just that the women were allowed driving license, and even elected to councils, and so on.
