By WALAA HAWARI | ARAB NEWS
RIYADH: A group of Saudi businesswomen is campaigning for all government departments to scrap the requirement for a male legal representative when processing paperwork and other related business.
The Commerce Ministry has already agreed to change its rules after the campaigners started their initiative in 2009, but it appears other government departments have not followed suit.
“It was basically a campaign for businesswomen who face many obstacles while managing their business because of the need for a male legal representative,” said Alya Banaja, campaign coordinator for the western provinces.
“We expected the ministries to coordinate between themselves and that we did not have to address every ministry separately.” She added that businesswomen as well as career women still face this obstacle at other ministries, such as the Ministry of Labor.
“The Ministry of Commerce was able to come out with a resolution to cancel the legal representative rule for women. Therefore, it is incomprehensible that other ministries did not take the same steps,” said Banaja.
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