“Failure to allow women to play sports violates the Olympic Charter, which prohibits gender discrimination, and would have triggered Saudi Arabia’s banning from the London Games,” Human Rights Watch said on Thursday.

The Saudi concession that “qualified” women could compete comes only weeks before the opening ceremony for the London 2012 Games.

“This is an important step forward, but it also fails to address the fundamental barriers to women playing sports in the kingdom,” said Minky Worden, director of global initiatives.

While calling the Saudi announcement an important advance for women, Human Rights Watch cautioned that gender discrimination in Saudi Arabia is institutional and entrenched. “Alone in the world, millions of girls are still banned from playing sports in Saudi’s schools,” Worden said. Women are also prohibited from playing team sports and denied access to sports facilities, including gyms and swimming pools.

According to Human Rights Watch, these obstacles to sport are underpinned by the government’s so-called “guardianship” system, under which women must obtain permission from a male guardian (a father, husband, or even a son) to work, study, marry or access health care. Saudi women are banned even from driving a car.

Human Rights Watch said Saudi Arabia should demonstrate its commitment to human rights and the Olympic Charter not just by sending a team of female athletes to the London Olympics, but by adopting new policies that will create real, systemic change to benefit all Saudi women and girls.

“With the Saudi Olympic reversal as momentum”, Human Rights Watch said, it “will continue to push Saudi Arabia to allow women to play sports and participate in public life.”

Human Rights Watch called on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to put an end to the discrimination against women in sports in the kingdom a condition for Saudi Arabia’s participation in Olympic sporting events, including the 2012 London Games.
“The fact that women and girls cannot train to compete clearly violates the Olympic Charter’s pledge to equality and gives the Olympic movement itself a black eye, ”according to 
Christoph Wilcke, senior Middle East researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Saudi Arabia is one of only three countries in the world never to have sent a female athlete to the Olympics. The other two, Qatar and Brunei, do not bar women from competitive sports and their women athletes have taken part in other international sporting competitions. Qatar has supported sports for women over the past decade and said that it plans to send women athletes to the London 2012 Olympic Games.

The 51-page report, “‘Steps of the Devil’: Denial of Women and Girls’ Right to Sport in Saudi Arabia,” documents prejudice by Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Education in denying girls physical education in state schools, as well as discriminatory practices by the General Presidency for Youth Welfare, a youth and sports ministry, in licensing women’s gyms and supporting only all-male sports clubs. The National Olympic Committee of Saudi Arabia also has no programmes for women athletes and has not fielded women in past Olympic Games.

While the IOC has criticized Saudi Arabia for failing to send women athletes to the Olympics, it has not conditioned the kingdom’s participation on ending discrimination against women in sports. In July 2011, IOC spokeswoman Sandrine Tonge said that the IOC governing body “does not give ultimatums nor deadlines but rather believes that a lot can be achieved through dialogue.” The IOC charter, however, asserts that sport is a right for everyone and bans discrimination in practicing sports on the basis of gender. 
Human Rights Watch called on Saudi Arabia to act within one year to introduce physical education for girls in all schools, open women’s sections, and fund women’s sport in the youth ministry, the Saudi National Olympic Committee, and Saudi sports federations. The organization said that these steps are essential proof of a Saudi effort to end discrimination against women in sports and thus a precondition for allowing the kingdom to be represented in Olympic events.

Women and girls are not only denied the excitement of competition, but also the physical and psychological benefits, leading to longer, healthier lives, that participation in sports conveys. Obesity rates have been on the rise in Saudi Arabia in recent years, in particular among women, as have related diseases, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. In Saudi Arabia, between two-thirds to three-quarters of adults and 25 to 40 percent of children and adolescents are estimated to be overweight or obese, according to a scientific article in Obesity Review in 2011.