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Gendering Global Humanitarianism in the Twentieth Century pp 167–192Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Humanitarian Service in the Name of Social Development: The Historic Origins of Women’s Welfare Associations in Saudi Arabia

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Part of the book series: Palgrave Macmillan Transnational History Series ((PMSTH))

Abstract

Nora Derbal offers rare insights into the blurred boundaries between humanitarian action, charity, and development in Saudi Arabia. By focusing on women volunteers’ interplay with the state, she explores how humanitarian practice has offered a space to challenge and transgress sociopolitical norms and practices in Saudi Arabia. This analysis points to how women’s welfare associations have strategically mobilized prevalent social and cultural constructions of femininity within a state-fostered ideological frame of societal “development”, in order to represent and justify their involvement in the public arena of welfare. The chapter concludes with a gendered reading of the origins of The First Women’s Welfare Society in Jeddah, founded in 1961, and Al-Nahda Women’s Charity Society, founded in Riyadh in 1962.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Guardian reported more than 500 deaths, see Ali al-Ahmed, “Jeddah Flood Deaths Shame Saudi Royals,” The Guardian , 03.12.2009, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/dec/03/jeddah-floods-sewage-al-saud (last accessed 12.01.2016); see a critical discussion of these numbers and detailed analysis of the floods, in Jannis Hagmann, Regen von oben, Protest von unten: Eine Analyse gesellschaftlicher Mobilisierung in Jidda, Saudi-Arabien, anhand von Presse, Petitionen und Facebook, Working Paper Series 4 (Berlin: Freie Universität Berlin, 2012).

  2. 2.

    To voice the seriousness of the situation was part of the relief workers’ strategy; hence, local media coverage was abundant, see Hassna’a Mokhtar, “Outpouring of Citizen Action after Flooding,” Arab News, 01.12.2009, http://www.arabnews.com/node/330553 (last accessed 12.01.2016); Michael Bou-Nacklie, “The Rise of Civil Society in an Emergency,” Destination Jeddah 12 (2010), 6–11.

  3. 3.

    In 2015, the Ministry of Social Affairs counted 746 welfare associations upon changing their legal status to NGOs, see Adam Coogle, “Dispatches: Better Late Than Never – Saudi Arabia Approves NGO Law,” Human Rights Watch, 02.12.2015, https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/12/02/dispatches-better-late-never-saudi-arabia-approves-ngo-law (last accessed 09.01.2016).

  4. 4.

    For a lexical analysis of the term, see Jasmine Moussa, “Ancient Origins, Modern Actors: Defining Arabic Meanings of Humanitarianism,” HPG Working Paper (London: Humanitarian Policy Group, 2014), https://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/9290.pdf (last accessed 29.07.2018), 3–7.

  5. 5.

    Hans Wehr, “Insān,” in J. Milton Cowan, ed., A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic (Urbana, IL: Spoken Language Services, 1994), 39 who does not yet list “humanitarianism” among the meanings associated with the Arabic root “I” “n” “s” or with the term insāniyya.

  6. 6.

    However, we are currently witnessing a shift towards secularization, accelerated under King Salman’s reign since 2015, as is visible, for instance, in the drastic remodelling of the International Islamic Relief Organization of Saudi Arabia (IIRO or IIROSA), see Jonathan Benthall, “The Rise and Decline of Saudi Overseas Humanitarian Charities,” Occasional Paper 20 (2018), 1–41, here 27.

  7. 7.

    On Islamic aid and humanitarianism, see Jonathan Benthall, “Islamic Charities, Faith-Based Organizations, and the International Aid System,” in Jon B. Alterman and Karin von Hippel, eds., Understanding Islamic Charities (Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2007), 1–14; and Jonathan Benthall, “‘Cultural Proximity’ and the Conjuncture of Islam with Modern Humanitarianism,” in Michael Barnett and Janice Gross Stein, eds., Sacred Aid: Faith and Humanitarianism (Oxford et al.: Oxford University Press, 2012), 65–89; for the Gulf region, see Robert Lacey and Jonathan Benthall, eds., Gulf Charities and Islamic Philanthropy in the “Age of Terror” and beyond (Berlin: Gerlach Press, 2014); for Gulf-based transnational Islamic aid, see Marie Juul Petersen, For Humanity or for the Umma? Aid and Islam in Transnational Muslim NGOs (London: Hurst & Co, 2015).

  8. 8.

    Nora Derbal, “Domestic, Religious, Civic? Notes on Institutionalized Charity in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia,” in Robert Lacey and Jonathan Benthall, eds., Gulf Charities and Islamic Philanthropy in the “Age of Terror” and beyond (Berlin: Gerlach Press, 2014), 145–167.

  9. 9.

    For an overview from various angles, see Lacey and Benthall, Gulf Charities and Islamic Philanthropy in the “Age of Terror” and beyond.

  10. 10.

    Khalid Al-Yahya and Nathalie Fustier, “Saudi Arabia as a Global Humanitarian Donor,” in Robert Lacey and Jonathan Benthall, eds., Gulf Charities and Islamic Philanthropy – In the “Age of Terror” and Beyond (Berlin: Gerlach Press, 2014), 169–197; Sherine El Taraboulsi-McCarthy, “A Kingdom of Humanity? Saudi Arabia’s Values, Systems and Interests in Humanitarian Action,” HPG Working Paper (London: Humanitarian Policy Group, 2017), https://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/resource-documents/11741.pdf (last accessed 06.08.2018).

  11. 11.

    Ministry of Foreign Affairs et al., “Partnership in Development and South-South Cooperation,” 2016, http://www.sa.undp.org/content/saudi_arabia/en/home/library/human_development/KSA_ODA_report.html (last accessed 16.02.2017).

  12. 12.

    A notable exception is the al-Birr Society (Jamʿiyyat al-Birr al-Khayriyya), founded in 1953, which counts some 462 organizations and offices in every major town of the country, see Ministry of Social Affairs, Dalīl al-Jamʿiyyāt al-Khayriyya fī al-Mamlaka al-ʿArabiyya al-Saʿūdiyya [Directory of Welfare Associations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia] (Riyadh: Ministry of Social Affairs, 2012).

  13. 13.

    For Yemen, see Susanne Dahlgren, “Welfare and Modernity: Three Concepts for the ‘Advanced Woman’,” in Nefissa Naguib and Inger Marie Okkenhaug, eds., Interpreting Welfare and Relief in the Middle East (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008), 57–82.

  14. 14.

    Ministry of Social Affairs, Dalīl al-Jamʿiyyāt al-Khayriyya, 9.

  15. 15.

    See, for instance, Mary A. Fay, “Women and Waqf: Toward a Reconsideration of Women’s Place in the Mamluk Household,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 29 (1997), 33–51; Amy Singer, Constructing Ottoman Beneficence: An Imperial Soup Kitchen in Jerusalem (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002), 71–99; Beth Baron, “Islam, Philanthropy, and Political Culture in Interwar Egypt: The Activism of Labiba Ahmad,” in Michael Bonner, Mine Ener, and Amy Singer, eds., Poverty and Charity in Middle Eastern Contexts (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003), 239–254.

  16. 16.

    Information on formal charity is scattered throughout the sources; on shelters endowed by women in Mecca, see, for example, Richard T. Mortel, “‘Ribāṭs’ in Mecca during the Medieval Period: A Descriptive Study Based on Literary Sources,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 61, no. 1 (1998), 29–50, here 36, 42, 44, 47; an endowment for a school made by a Calcuttan woman is mentioned in Madawi Al-Rasheed, A Most Masculine State: Gender, Politics and Religion in Saudi Arabia (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 83.

  17. 17.

    Soraya Altorki, Women in Saudi Arabia: Ideology and Behavior among the Elite (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 66.

  18. 18.

    Ibid., 48.

  19. 19.

    Al-Rasheed, A Most Masculine State, 78, 89–95.

  20. 20.

    Central argument of Eleanor A. Doumato, “Gender, Monarchy, and National Identity in Saudi Arabia,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 19, no. 1 (1992), 31–47; and Al-Rasheed, A Most Masculine State; and Amélie Le Renard, A Society of Young Women: Opportunities of Place, Power, and Reform in Saudi Arabia (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014).

  21. 21.

    That it was oil rather than Islam that increased women’s confinement in twentieth century Arabia is argued, for instance, by Michael Ross, “Oil, Islam, and Women,” American Political Science Review 102, no. 1 (2008), 107–123.

  22. 22.

    Aisha M. Almana, “Economic Development and Its Impact on the Status of Women in Saudi Arabia,” unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Colorado (1981), 124–127; Salwa Al-Khateeb, “The Oil Boom and Its Impact on Women and Families in Saudi Arabia,” in Alanoud Alsharekh, ed., The Gulf Family: Kinship Policies and Modernity (London: Saqi, 2007), 83–108, here 83–84, 99–102.

  23. 23.

    Almana, “Status of Women”; Le Renard, A Society of Young Women, 29–33.

  24. 24.

    Al-Rasheed, A Most Masculine State, 103–107.

  25. 25.

    Informal conversation with a volunteer from the first generation of volunteers, at the Annual Member Meeting of the First Women’s Welfare Association, at the headquarters of the association, Jeddah, 10.12.2012.

  26. 26.

    For general discussion of female public spaces and their definition, see Le Renard, A Society of Young Women, 6.

  27. 27.

    Al-Rasheed, A Most Masculine State, 78–89.

  28. 28.

    Sarah Yizraeli, Politics and Society in Saudi Arabia: The Crucial Years of Development, 1960–1982 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), 228–234. Already in 1925, Ibn Saʿud had established a Directorate for Education (Mudiriyyat al-Maʿārif) in Mecca, which announced that primary education would be compulsory for boys and free of charge. Yet, due to strong religious opposition, the directorate failed to introduce general subjects into the curricula. An illiteracy rate estimate of 97.5 per cent by UNESCO in 1962 suggests that the directorate did not reach far. See also Alexei Vassiliev, The History of Saudi Arabia (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 309–310.

  29. 29.

    Al-Rasheed, A Most Masculine State, 89–95.

  30. 30.

    Ibid., 77–107.

  31. 31.

    Doumato, “Gender, Monarchy, and National Identity in Saudi Arabia.”

  32. 32.

    Al-Rasheed, A Most Masculine State, 90, 91.

  33. 33.

    A central argument of Le Renard, A Society of Young Women.

  34. 34.

    Reflected in the memoirs of Teresa Fortis, Lockruf Saudia: Meine Erlebnisse im Hostessen-Camp (München: Knaur, 2011).

  35. 35.

    Eleanor A. Doumato, “Education in Saudi Arabia: Gender, Jobs, and the Price of Religion,” in Eleanor Abdella Doumato and Marsha Pripstein Posusney, eds., Women and Globalization in the Arab Middle East: Gender, Economy, and Society (London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003), 239–257.

  36. 36.

    Sarah Yizraeli, The Remaking of Saudi Arabia: The Struggle Between King Saʿud and Crown Prince Faysal, 1951–1962 (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1997).

  37. 37.

    Vassiliev, History of Saudi Arabia, 337–338.

  38. 38.

    Yizraeli, Crucial Years of Development, 265.

  39. 39.

    Vassiliev, History of Saudi Arabia, 341.

  40. 40.

    Ibid., 336–341; Robert Vitalis, America’s Kingdom: Mythmaking on the Saudi Oil Frontier (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007), 92–95.

  41. 41.

    Toby Matthiesen, “Migration, Minorities, and Radical Networks: Labour Movements and Opposition Groups in Saudi Arabia, 1950–1975,” International Review of Social History 59 (2014), 473–504.

  42. 42.

    For a critical reassessment of Faysal’s role in women’s education, see Al-Rasheed, A Most Masculine State, 90–92.

  43. 43.

    Toby C. Jones, Desert Kingdom: How Oil and Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 54–89; Toby C. Jones, “The Dogma of Development: Technopolitics and Power in Saudi Arabia,” in Bernard Haykel, Thomas Heghammer, and Stéphane Lacroix, eds., Saudi Arabia in Transition (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 31–48.

  44. 44.

    From the ninth point of Faisal’s speech, cited from Yizraeli, Crucial Years of Development, 307.

  45. 45.

    Hans Wehr, “Tanmiya,” in J. Milton Cowan, ed., A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic (Urbana, IL: Spoken Language Services, 1994), 1174; Hans Wehr, “Taṭwīr,” in J. Milton Cowan, ed., A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic (Urbana, IL: Spoken Language Services, 1994), 669.

  46. 46.

    Andrew Webster, “Modernisation Theory,” in Andrew Webster, ed., Introduction to the Sociology of Development, 2nd ed. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1990), 41–64.

  47. 47.

    From the preamble of Faisal’s speech, cited in Yizraeli, Crucial Years of Development, 303.

  48. 48.

    Jones, Desert Kingdom, 62.

  49. 49.

    Ibid., 54–90, especially 84.

  50. 50.

    To a certain extent, education is an exception to the rule, since primary (ibtidāʾiyya) and high-school (thanawiyya) education is free of charge for non-Saudi residents in Saudi Arabia who can prove a valid residence permit for their children.

  51. 51.

    Which Faysal outlined in the Ten-Point Programme, specifically § 7, in Yizraeli, Crucial Years of Development, 303–308.

  52. 52.

    Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, Al-Ḍamān al-Ijtimāʿī fī Thalātha Sanawāt, 1382–1385 h. [Three Years of Social Security, 1962–1965] (Riyadh: Ṭabʿa Markaz al-Tadrīb, 1965).

  53. 53.

    Kiren Aziz Chaudhry, The Price of Wealth (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), 149, my emphasis.

  54. 54.

    On statelessness in the context of the wider Gulf, see Claire Beaugrand, “Statelessness & Administrative Violence: Bidūns’ Survival Strategies in Kuwait,” Muslim World 101, no. 2 (2011), 228–250.

  55. 55.

    The Arabic term translates into a variety of associational formats, including the club, association, society, corporation, organization and assembly: see Hans Wehr, “Jamʿīya,” in J. Milton Cowan, ed., A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic (Urbana, IL: Spoken Language Services, 1994), 160.

  56. 56.

    A. H. Hourani et al., “Ḏjamʿiyya,” in P. Bearman et al., eds., Encyclopaedia of Islam (Brill Online Reference Works, first published online 2012), http://www.brillonline.nl/subscriber/entry?entry=islam_COM-0182 (last accessed 23.01.2018).

  57. 57.

    For the early twentieth century Middle East, 1908–1914, see Eliezer Tauber, The Emergence of the Arab Movements (London: Cass, 1993), 61–331.

  58. 58.

    Lisa Pollard, “Egyptian by Association: Charitable States and Service Societies, circa 1850–1945,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 46 (2014), 239–257.

  59. 59.

    Al-Rasheed, A Most Masculine State, 94–95.

  60. 60.

    Saddeka Arebi, Women and Words in Saudi Arabia: The Politics of Literary Discourse (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 31.

  61. 61.

    Samira Khashogji, “al-Marʾa wa-l-Taʿlīm [Women and Education],” Huqul (2007), 81–83, 83, cited in Al-Rasheed, A Most Masculine State, 95.

  62. 62.

    Al-Rasheed, A Most Masculine State, 101.

  63. 63.

    Social security was introduced by royal decree (rusūm malakī) no. 19.17, dated 19.08.1962 (18.3.1382 h.) and later modified by no. 32, dated 11.02.1966 (20.10.1385 h.). It was composed of social assistance (musāʿadāt ijtimāʿiyya), a one-time payment for specific hardship caused by natural catastrophe or extraordinary social circumstances, such as imprisonment, and a monthly stipend (maʿāsha) stipulated at SR 30 (USD 7) per individual, or SR 130 (USD 29) for a family household with a maximum of seven members, see Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, Al-Ḍamān al-Ijtimāʿī fī Thalātha Sanawāt, 1382–1385 h. [Three Years of Social Security, 1962–1965].

  64. 64.

    Sura, The Women (IV), verse 35–40, here given as Arthur J. Arberry, trans., The Koran (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 77.

  65. 65.

    For example, Abū Bakr Bāqādir, al-Faqr wa-Āthāruhu al-Ijtimāʿiyya wa-Barāmij wa-Āliyāt Mukāfaḥatihi fī Duwal Majlis al-Tāʿāwun [Poverty and its Social Impact as well as Programs and Means Combatting it in the Cooperation Council [GCC]], Council of Ministers of Labour and Ministers of Social Affairs in the GCC States, ed., (Manama: GCC Executive Bureau, 2008), 207–225; Hayfāʾ ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Al-Shalhūb, Mushkilat al-Faqr bayn il-Nisāʾ fī al-Mamlaka al-ʿArabiyya al-Saʿūdiyya [The Problem of Poverty among Women in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia] (Riyadh: Maktabat al-Rushd, 2010); Talha Fadaak, Female Poverty in Saudi Arabia: A Study of Poor Female Headed Households, Social Policies and Programmes in Jeddah City (Saarbrücken: Lambert Academic Publishing, 2012).

  66. 66.

    Human Rights Watch, “Boxed In: Women and Saudi Arabia’s Male Guardianship System,” 2016, https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/saudiarabia0716web.pdf (last accessed 20.07.2016).

  67. 67.

    To my knowledge, there are no equivalent associations organized explicitly “by men, for men” in Saudi Arabia.

  68. 68.

    First Women’s Welfare Association, Kutayyib Aṣdarathu al-Jamʿiyya al-Nisāʾiyya al-Khayriyya bi-Munāsabat Murūr 20 Sana ʿalā Taʾsīsihā [Booklet Issued by the First Women’s Welfare Association on the Occasion of 20 Years since its Establishment] (Jeddah: Unknown Publisher, 1982), 39.

  69. 69.

    See also Talha Fadaak, “Poverty in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: An Explanatory Study of Poverty and Female-Headed Households in Jeddah City,” Social Policy Administration 44, no. 6 (2010), 689–707.

  70. 70.

    First Women’s Welfare Association, Murūr 20 Sana, 53–93.

  71. 71.

    Defined by the ICRC as “impartial, independent, and neutral provision of life-saving relief in emergency settings”, for a critical discussion of the concept, see Michael Barnett and Janice Gross Stein, “Introduction,” in Michael Barnett and Janice Gross Stein, eds., Sacred Aid: Faith and Humanitarianism (Oxford et al.: Oxford University Press, 2012), 3–36, here specifically 11–12.

  72. 72.

    Al-Nahda Society, “ʿAn al-Nahḍa [About al-Nahda],” 2016, http://www.alnahda-ksa.org/About.aspx (last accessed 01.05.2016).

  73. 73.

    First Women’s Welfare Association, “al-Ruʾya wa-l-Risāla wa-l-Ahdāf [Vision, Mission and Goals],” 2012, http://www.firstwelfaresociety.org.sa/index.php/ar/ (last accessed 26.01.2016).

  74. 74.

    Ibid.

  75. 75.

    “Nubdha ʿan Taʾsīs al-Jamʿiyya,” in First Women’s Welfare Association, Murūr 20 Sana, 32.

  76. 76.

    Ibid., 99.

  77. 77.

    Ministry of Social Affairs, Dalīl al-Jamʿiyyāt al-Khayriyya.

  78. 78.

    Since the historical sources tend to be quiet about women, it is difficult to estimate the extent to which they were also involved in these earlier associations. Today, associations like the Al-Birr Charity Society are headed by men, who run the administrative and financial affairs, but the actual work with the beneficiaries is often done by social workers who tend to be women, given that cultural norms allow them easier access to families and their female members.

  79. 79.

    Joseph A. Kéchichian, “Self-Assurance in the Face of Military Might,” Gulf News: Weekend Review, 20.01.2012, http://gulfnews.com/life-style/people/self-assurance-in-the-face-of-military-might-1.967216 (last accessed 02.05.2016).

  80. 80.

    Joseph A. Kéchichian, “Pioneer Who Gave Wings to Saudi Women’s Dreams,” Gulf News: Weekend Review, 07.08.2008, http://gulfnews.com/pioneer-who-gave-wings-to-saudi-women-s-dreams-1.40588 (last accessed 02.05.2015).

  81. 81.

    For instance, in the documentary prominently displayed on the association’s website, see First Women’s Welfare Association, al-Jamʿiyya al-Nisāʾiyya al-Khayriyya al-Ūla bi-Jidda [The First Women’s Welfare Association in Jeddah], YouTube, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9b6Q3T54Sg (last accessed 04.10.2018).

  82. 82.

    Al-Nahda Society, “ʿAn al-Nahḍa [About al-Nahda].”

  83. 83.

    First Women’s Welfare Association, Murūr 20 Sana, 41.

  84. 84.

    Islamic laws grant women substantial rights to own property and inheritance from relatives, yet they are in theory exempted from contributing financially to the household. On women and property in the context of charity, see Mary Ann Fay, “Women and Waqf: Property, Power, and the Domain of Gender in Eighteenth-Century Egypt,” in Madeline C. Zilfi, ed., Women in the Ottoman Empire: Middle Eastern Women in the Early Modern Era (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 28–47.

  85. 85.

    Nisrīn al-Idrīsī (director of the First Women’s Welfare Association), interview with the author, at the headquarters of the association, Jeddah, 13.01.2010.

  86. 86.

    Nisrīn al-Idrīsī (director of the First Women’s Welfare Association), follow-up interview, at the headquarters of the association, Jeddah, 26.03.2013.

  87. 87.

    Summarized in Natasha M. Matic and Banderi A. R. Al-Faiṣal, “Empowering the Saudi Social Development Sector,” The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs 36, no. 2 (2012), 11–18.

  88. 88.

    Her research analyses data of the inhabitants of the 34 shelters of the First Women’s Welfare Association and the Faysaliyya Welfare Association (Jamʿiyyat al-Faysaliyya al-Khayriyya) gathered in 1993, see Suʿād ʿUbūd Bin, ʿAfīf, Mujtamaʿ al-Rubuṭ: Dirāsa Waṣfiyya li-Asālīb al-Riʿāya al-Ijtimāʿiyya fī Buyūt al-Fuqarāʾ bi-Madīnat Jidda, al-Mamlaka al-ʿArabiyya al-Saʿūdiyya [Ribat Community: A Descriptive Study of Social Welfare Services in Poor-Housing in the City of Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia] (Jeddah: King ʿAbd al-ʿAziz University, 1993).

  89. 89.

    Ibid., 80–81.

  90. 90.

    On stigmatization and disgrace (waṣm), see Laylā ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad Jamāl, al-Ḥayā al-Ijtimāʿiyya wa-l-Riʿāya fī al-Masākin al-Iwāʾiyya: Dirāsa Ithnūghrāfiyya ʿalā al-Masākin wa-l-Sākinīn fī Madinat Jidda [Social and Welfare Life in Residential Housing: An Ethnographic Study of Housing and Inhabitants in Jeddah City] (Jeddah: King ʿAbd al-ʿAziz University, 2011), 257–279.

  91. 91.

    The other nationalities being Saudi (27%), Somali (7%), Egyptian (3%), Sudanese (1%), Pakistani (5%), Ethiopian (4%), Palestinian (2%), Syrian (1%) and Philippine (2%), see Bin ʿAfīf, Mujtamaʿ al-Rubuṭ, 80–81.

  92. 92.

    Anthony H. Cordesman, Saudi Arabia: National Security in a Troubled Region (Santa Barbara et al.: Praeger Frederick, 2009), 31–32.

  93. 93.

    Although this high number raises doubts, it is mathematically possible if a high share of remittances were sent home illegally or earned on the black market. Statistics from ibid., 31–32.

  94. 94.

    William Thomas Allison, The Gulf War, 1990–91 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 81–83.

  95. 95.

    The practice of expelling guest workers over larger political differences with their countries of origin is not unique to the Yemeni case. Earlier, similar reactions have been directed toward Egyptian laborers in opposition to the Nasserist politics of Egypt in the 1960s. At the time of writing, such measures target Pakistanis, 40,000 of whom had to leave Saudi Arabia within a few months after a Pakistani blew himself up in front of the US consulate in Jeddah in July 2016, in the name of the so-called Islamic State.

  96. 96.

    Tahām (social worker at the First Women’s Welfare Association), conversation, 20.01.2010.

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  1. The American University in Cairo (AUC), Cairo, Egypt

    Nora Derbal

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  1. Leibniz Institute of European History, Mainz, Germany

    Esther Möller

  2. Leibniz Institute of European History, Mainz, Germany

    Johannes Paulmann

  3. University of Giessen, Giessen, Germany

    Katharina Stornig

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Derbal, N. (2020). Humanitarian Service in the Name of Social Development: The Historic Origins of Women’s Welfare Associations in Saudi Arabia. In: Möller, E., Paulmann, J., Stornig, K. (eds) Gendering Global Humanitarianism in the Twentieth Century. Palgrave Macmillan Transnational History Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44630-7_7

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