Saudi Arabia, a monarchy whose legal system is based on Islamic law, is considered the most significant of the three, given its size, international oil influence and severe restrictions placed on women in daily life. While female athletes from Qatar and Brunei have participated in national and regional competitions, Saudi Arabia has essentially barred sports for women, according to Human Rights Watch.
A pan-Arab newspaper based in London, Al-Hayat, reported Tuesday that the Saudi Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz has approved the participation of female athletes in London as long as their sports “meet the standards of women’s decency and don’t contradict Islamic laws.”
The International Olympic Committee said in a statement that it met with Saudi Olympic officials last week and that it was “confident that Saudi Arabia is working to include women athletes and officials at the Olympic Games in London.”
Qatar and Brunei have previously signaled an interest in sending female athletes to London.
Human Rights Watch, which has accused the I.O.C. of violating its own charter for equality by allowing Saudi Arabia into the Games while discriminating against women, said it could not confirm the Arab newspaper report. But an official with the rights organization said he believed that at least one Saudi female athlete would compete in London, which he called a modest first step.
“While tokenistic participation is welcome, it wouldn’t change our position that the I.O.C. should affect more systemic change,” said Christoph Wilcke of Germany, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch’s Middle Eastern and North African division.
Wilcke was the lead author of a blistering, 51-page report issued last month by Human Rights Watch that detailed the struggles facing female athletes in Saudi Arabia. According to the report, Saudi officials systematically discriminated against women, providing no physical education for girls in state schools, closing gyms for women in 2009 and 2010 and forcing them to play in underground leagues.
Saudi Arabia has faced widespread criticism in the West for its general treatment of women, who must receive permission from male guardians to gain employment, get an education, open a bank account, get married and travel abroad. Effectively, they are forbidden from driving automobiles.
“How many countries ban P.E. for girls?” Wilcke said in a phone interview from Munich.
Human Rights Watch has called on the I.O.C. to make Saudi Arabia’s future Olympic participation dependent on a good-faith effort to lessen discrimination against female athletes.
The rights organization has requested that female Saudi athletes be allowed to participate in the London Games; that women’s divisions be opened in the Saudi Olympic Committee, in its various sports organizations and in sports clubs; that physical education for girls be taught in schools; and that an outreach program be started to encourage women to participate in sports.
A list of several potential athletes for the London Games was presented by Saudi officials to the I.O.C. last week. That list will be examined by international sports federations, which give consent to Olympic participants. A formal proposal for the inclusion of female Saudi athletes at the London Games will be made to the I.O.C.’s executive board in Quebec City in late May.
These athletes will most likely find it difficult or impossible to meet Olympic qualifying standards, given their lack of international experience. But the I.O.C. has long granted participation under special conditions to athletes from developing nations. And it is under significant pressure to make accommodations for Saudi women in London.
Human Rights Watch has suggested that a female track athlete be among those named to the Saudi Olympic team, given that she could cover herself with a headscarf and an unrevealing uniform as opposed, to say, a swimmer, Wilcke said.
One possible entrant is a teenage equestrian, Dalma Rushdi Malhas, who won a bronze medal at the 2010 Youth Olympics in Singapore.
Saudi Arabia’s sending a female athlete to London could put pressure on other countries with restrictions on women’s participation to do likewise, said Martha F. Davis, a professor at Northeastern University School of Law.
“I think it’s a savvy move,” she said. “It’s trying to make sure there isn’t a groundswell of Arab Spring-like activities and being responsive to those yearnings to participate. It’s being proactive.”
Female athletes in Saudi Arabia could still face headwinds in getting financing to compete, said Erika George, a professor at the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah. And, she said, the reaction to female Olympians could be icy.
“There are people who may think it’s inappropriate,” George said. “But there’s precedent for this. It’s going to be hard to argue that a woman can be an Olympic champion but not be behind the wheel.”
Should Saudi Arabia also send female officials to the Olympics, that, too, would be “significant progress,” George said. “That’s a power position. Maybe not always a prominent one, but that’s women making decisions and I think that’s really going to challenge perceptions.”
