Saudi Arabia first women councillors elected - academic resources

This week the first women councillors were elected in local elections in Saudi Arabia

Here are some useful resources for investigating this further

This is the official ministry site from Saudi Arabia (Arabic language ) which has details of local elections and electoral procedures.

National Geographic has interviews with candidates and women voters

Jadaliyya.com has discussion from women members of the Baladi campaign which supports womens political rights. This should be the home page of the movement (Arabic so unable to verify)

Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain has some reports from women in the region as well as commentary

Guardian newspaper coverage

Useful programme from NPR which considers levels of turnout


IKnow politics the International Network of women in Politics has news, comment and articles on women in politics in the region


For background on womens human rights in Saudi Arabia and how they compare to other nations see the UNDP gender inequality index on the Human development reports website. See the entry for Saudi Arabia

Human Rights Watch 2015 report on Saudi Arabia

IPU has data on womens representations in parliaments worldwide

This masters thesis from University of Washington 2014 has a useful bibliographic on womens rights

This article reviews the status of women in Saudi Arabia published in the American Journal of education has been written by Ministry of education officials

Commentary from think tanks and academic groups

Al Monitor

Middle East Policy Council

Saudi Arabia women win right to vote

This week it was announced that in Saudi Arabia women will soon be able to vote.

The bbc discusses some reaction from Egyptian citizens via social media sites
Global voices is a good place for finding up to date comment (In English)
Al Arabiya also has well regarded news in English for instance see this article
You can find further articles from its journalists on the Arab Insight site. Arab Insight is a project of the World Security Institute, a non-profit organization committed to independent research and journalism on global affairs.

For example this article Stuck at a Red Light
ASMAA AL-MOHAMEDJournalist and Women’s Rights Activist; Online Editor for Al Arabiya; Saudi Arabia

Other organisations who regularly comment on womens political and civil rights in the region include:
Centre for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabi
Amnesty International and Human Rights watch
General databases on womens political participation worldwide include:
Women In politics Bibliography - search for references to articles. Maintained by the IPU
They also maintain statistics on women in Parliaments Worldwide. Compare data by country