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Riyadh: Women in Saudi Arabia can now stay in a hotel or a furnished apartment without a male guardian according to a decision by the Ministry of Trade, the local newspapers reported on Monday.
The Al Watan daily said the ministry issued a circular to the hotels asking them to accept women in their rooms even if they were alone provided that all their information were immediately sent to a police station in the area.
The decision came after a study conducted by the Interior Ministry, the Supreme Commission of Tourism and the religious police authority known as the Commission for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.
Saudi women suffer severe restrictions on daily life as they are not allowed to be anywhere with an unrelated man, appear before a judge without a male representative, or travel abroad without a male guardian's permission.
The paper interviewed some Saudi women who complained that they had been severely inconvenienced by the rules banning them from staying in the hotels alone.
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