The human face to Apple and Google’s negligence. These women escaped abuse, now they want to help others.
Two sisters escaped the clutches of the Saudi Arabian regime. They’re now seeking asylum in Georgia. They want to help other women avoid the same struggles they did, by begging Apple and Google to remove the Absher app from their platforms.
Absher, if you don’t remember or aren’t aware, is an app on both Apple’s App Store and Google Play. The app has a number of functions for government record keeping, like a mobile DMV. However, it also has another sinister primary purpose. The app allows Saudi men to track and control the travel of women. This can prevent them from escaping the country, prevent them from doing business, and keep women from an education. It can also lead to the arrest and indefinite imprisonment of women in the country.
It’s a barbaric, misogynistic system. Google has already given the app its seal of approval, though enough pressure could cause them to reverse course. Apple’s CEO Tim Cook said he’d “look into it.” That was over two months ago. Apple still has not banned the abusive, harmful, discriminatory, and sexist app, which violates many of its own App Store guidelines.
What would it take for Apple and Google to take a stand for women trapped in Saudi Arabia? Perhaps enough public pressure will do the trick.
Two Refugee Sisters
Maha and Wafa al-Subaie escaped the clutches of Saudi Arabia’s male guardianship system. They faced abuse at their hands of their family, who worked for the security sector they should have been able to go to for help. Without guardians, they were forced to flee the country.
Maha and Wafa are 28 and 25, respectively, and are looking to help other women escape Saudi Arabia. The two had to steal their father’s phone to gain access to his Absher account to give themselves permission to travel. Still, if their father had access to his phone, he could have spotted them trying to travel across the border and blocked them.
A push notification on his phone when they attempt to cross the border would have been all it took. Apple provided that push notification service on the iOS side, and Google made it possible for Android. Without those push notifications, like, if the male guardianship system relied on a computer or mobile web app, women would be able to more easily escape the country.
That’s why these two sisters, as well as a number of other human rights organizations across the world are begging Apple and Google to pull these abusive and harmful apps.
The Good Removing the App Could Do
“If [Apple and Google] remove this application, maybe the government will do something.”
– Wafa alSubaie
Men would still receive SMS notifications, though the entire process of restricting travel would be more difficult without the app. Meanwhile, escaping the country would be easier if men didn’t have Absher. Women could use a computer or browser on their “male guardian’s” phone, with him not realizing it happened until they’ve already escaped his clutches.
If Apple and Google pull the app, they’d not only make it harder for men to track and control women in Saudi Arabia. They’d also send a powerful message to the backwards kingdom: sexism like this isn’t welcome anywhere else in the world. They’d push the kingdom towards decency, raising awareness of the problem outside of the country and creating turmoil within the country that could finally push its leadership towards change.
It was pressure from outside and within Saudi Arabia that finally lead the kingdom to allow women to drive. A similar push from Apple and Google could finally free women from their male captors.
The Global Cry
“Technology can, and should, be all about progress. But the hugely invasive powers that are being unleashed may do incalculable damage if there are not sufficient checks in place to respect human rights.”
– UN Human Rights Chief Michelle Bachelet
Tim Cook, center, with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, Right. Photo: Saudi Embassy USA/Twitter
Everyone from feminists in the United States, Amnesty International, U.S. and European politicians, and even the United Nations have asked Apple and Google to take a stand for women. The two companies, rife with their own issues of sexism, have not budged. Both Apple and Google have a dearth of female employees and an even smaller number of female leadership. They’re already sexist institutions and, as such, may not fully understand the struggle of women in Saudi Arabia. They may find women’s issues unrelatable.
Last month, 11 female activists were tortured. They were electrocuted and waterboarded, and have still not been released. This is the kind of barbarism women in this country face simply for speaking up. This is what they’re trying to escape. But Apple and Google are working to keep them caged.
Sources:
- Bill Bostock, Business Insider
- Amy Gunia, Time
- Hannah Lucinda Smith, The Times
- Rebecca Speare-Cole, London Evening Standard