Following the ascension of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to his role in 2017, Saudi Arabian women have been entering the workforce in unprecedented numbers, a movement that continues to build momentum till today. This phenomenon has been largely attributed to a wave of landmark decrees announced over the last two years aimed at supporting Saudi women’s increased participation in the Kingdom’s economic development.
As part of this growing trend, more women have been breaking into sectors that were once male-dominated, one recent area being the country’s borders. According to Saudi Gazette, 760 Saudi female passport officials have been recruited and are now being trained at the training center of the Directorate General of Passports (Jawazat) in Riyadh, Mecca, Medina, and the Eastern Province, “to perform various tasks so as to serve the visitors and pilgrims arriving in the Kingdom through its air, land and sea inlets.”
Speaking to the news site, the Director of the Center, Brig. Saleh Al-Muraba, explained that the two-week training is part of a qualifying program for the newly appointed personnel. He also pointed out that female employees “will be rigorously trained on document scrutiny, uncovering forgery, the military and security cultural system, the passport procedures and the skills of dealing with the public.”
Saudi women applying to be a part of the Directorate General of Passports various teams is not a new phenomenon. In February 2018, the organization received 107,000 job applications from Saudi women in just one week. The number of jobs openings posted on its website that garnered such an unexpectedly high response rate was in fact 140, which included positions at immigration at the Kingdom’s airports, seaports, and land crossings.
The Saudi government has been working diligently on creating more job opportunities for women, an objective that falls under the Kingdom’s Vision 2030, which aims to diversify Saudi Arabia’s oil-dependent economy.
