The phone app, "Absher" should be removed as a viable product. It victimizes women.
May 29, 2019
By Sarah Harman and Katia Patin, Coda Story
Tbilisi - For more than five years, (click here) Maha and Wafa al-Subaie planned their escape from Saudi Arabia.
The sisters hoped to flee their family, which they said was physically abusive and controlled almost every aspect of their lives. This control was facilitated in part by a smartphone app called Absher.
The app can be used to grant or deny permissions for state services such as obtaining a passport or traveling outside the country. The app also offers electronic access to a variety of government services and notifies guardians if women travel beyond Saudi Arabia.
While not mandatory to have, the smartphone app has come to replace the country’s travel permission cards for many women, who under Saudi Arabia’s laws must get approval from a male guardian to obtain a passport or travel abroad.
Even once the sisters were able to leave the country, the sisters worried the app would help their family find them.
“It’s an enemy of women,” Maha al-Subaie, 28, said of the app, which has drawn growing international scrutiny for its role in perpetuating Saudi Arabia’s guardianship system. Under the system, a woman is effectively a minor from birth to death, requiring a male guardian — usually a father, husband or brother — to grant permission for everything, including marriage or travel....
