Tag Archives: discrimination

Breaking Taboos – the issue of Sexual Discrimination in the Middle East’s Marcomms Industry

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The #MeToo movement has rarely been discussed in the Middle East. It’s time we start talking seriously about sexual harassment in the region, especially in the marcomms industry (image source: http://www.alaraby.co.uk)

For all the impact that the online social movement #MeToo has brought to much of the world, there’s been little public talk of the challenges that women in the Middle East face when it comes to sexual discrimination. That changed this month, when ArabAd’s Iain Akerman published a piece detailing a recent case of allegations of sexual harassment at one global agency in the UAE.

The article is a must-read for all of us who work in marketing and communications (I was dismayed by a point of view shared by Ricarda Ruecker, vice-president of leadership and organisation development at MCN, that women could be to blame for any harassment they suffer due to their dress or behavior).

I want to applaud Iain and ArabAd for taking on this issue. The allegations are well known in Dubai, but they haven’t been published till now due to the nature of local defamation laws and the understandable reluctance of those women involved to talk about their ordeal publicly. Iain and ArabAd have taken a risk in publishing this piece.

Sadly, there’s so little straight talk on what women here have to deal with in the workplace. There’s lots of PR from certain quarters about the importance placed on women’s rights in certain parts of the region. And yet, I can’t help but ask one question; how does all the talk translate into action? Are companies asked, for example, to published pay scales for their male and female staff, as is now the case in Europe. The answer is no. Do we have enough female management in the industry? My answer would be not enough. And do women in the industry feel that they’re protected from harassment? I don’t feel that they do.

Small steps are being made when it comes to gender parity in the region’s marketing and communications industry. A group that I’m part of, the Advertising Business Group, is pushing to tackle gender stereotypes in the region’s advertising space. But it’s obvious that we need to do more. I’d argue that industry associations should play a larger role in talking about the issue and affording support to female members and organizations on both listening to their concerns in the case of the former, and helping put in place zero-tolerance policies for all types of harassment.

Ultimately, each and every one of us should not only pledge to fight discrimination and harassment, but we should also support anyone who feels that they have been wronged. Nothing justifies discrimination and harassment, and it’s time we started talking more about the issue openly and honestly.

Me, my wife and our baby – a personal story of how the Gulf is letting down its women by denying their children the right to nationality

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The children of Gulf women married to foreigners are not automatically granted nationality, unlike their male counterparts (image source http://www.flight965.com)

 
I promised I’d write on my experiences as a father and I’m having to start things off on a serious note. As some of you may know, my wife is from this region but I am not. We welcomed into our lives a little princess earlier this year.

The sad story is that in the Gulf region children born to Gulf women, in other words women with a nationality from the six GCC states, who are married to foreign men do not receive their mother’s nationality. This is in contrast to Gulf men who are married to foreign women. Their children do receive their father’s nationality.

It’s important to us that our little one cherishes both her cultures and that she’s recognized as both. She’s fortunate to have a European nationality through me, but, try as we might with visits to interior ministry offices and other government bodies, we realized that there is no formal process for our daughter to become a Gulf national like her mother. This is the same all over the Gulf, despite sporadic exemptions to the contrary.

I’ve heard countless reasons for this, such as the need for Gulf women to marry Gulf men, and the legal requirement that a Gulf national should have only one passport. To me, any discussion is bogus. If I was a Gulf male and my wife was a European foreigner our daughter would have qualified automatically for both nationalities.

I hear lots of news about progress being made it terms of women’s rights in the Gulf, which I applaud. However, until Gulf women are able to give their children everything that their male counterparts can, I cannot contend that women here are anywhere near to being equal to the men.

I hope for change, if not for my wife’s generation, then at least for my daughters. I hope you will join me in calling for a change to how Gulf women and their children are treated in the Gulf.

How much variety and discrimination is there in the Gulf?

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The GCC is as diverse and complicated as any other part of the globe (credit: rasheedsworld.com)


Looking on in from the outside, most expatriates see the Arabian Peninsula as one monotonous geography. The women wear black (unless they’re Kuwaiti) and the mean wear white. The language is the same, and everyone is a Muslim. And that’s the Gulf.

Well, hardly. Each country is unique, and offers a wealth of diversity in terms of culture, history and opinions. The range of accents in Bahrain is so prominent that a local will be able to tell where a compatriot may be from how the greeting alone.

Saudi is the most diverse country in the region. Its twenty million nationals come from all four corners of the world, and don’t be surprised to meet a Saudi whose roots trace back to Indonesia, China, or Western Africa. The Kingdom’s Western Region is the richest melting pot you’ll come across, thanks to hundreds of years of pilgrimage to the two holy cities of Makkah and Madinah. Often foreigners think that Dubai or Doha are the two cities that offer the greatest contrast of cultures and groups, but they don’t come close to what Jeddah has to offer.

And Christians in Kuwait and Bahrain? And a Jewish community in Manama? Yes, they’re locals (but there’s not many of them).

And of course, with variety comes discrimination. There’s a good deal of nepotism across the Gulf mainly due to the tribal, bedouin nature. It’s not uncommon to find a certain group dominating in one company – it’s not so much where a person is from as often as what their tribal name is. Many Saudis don’t use their tribal names any more. And there’s also discrimination based on region (Jeddah versus Riyadh, Dubai versus Abu Dhabi etc), on the history behind the family name (in other words how far back can the family’s genealogy be traced), and on religion (which mathab or religious affiliation a person adheres to).

While this isn’t unique to the Gulf (tell me a place where there isn’t any discrimination) what I do find interesting is the institutionalized discrimination in certain parts of the GCC. Some states, most notably Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman count GCC nationals as locals when it comes to hiring and nationalization quotas. The UAE and Qatar do not – when they say local they mean local. For a European the difference in policy between the two groups is hard to fathom (especially when considering the relatively small populations of both Qatar and the UAE when compared to Saudi Arabia).

So, the next time you’re sitting in the coffee ship and sipping on your coffee do remember to ask yourself where the gentleman in white is from. You may be surprised at how much you can learn about a region that is full of culture and contrast.