No rental for women?

Mohammed Al-Hassani IF a female citizen who has no male relative to assist her with her affairs, or perhaps who has unhelpful relatives, requested from a real estate office to rent an apartment in her name after producing her ID and family card that includes her children’s names, the office will not do so because she is a woman. They would ask her to bring some authorized man to sign the lease on her behalf. Otherwise, this woman would never be able to rent an apartment, even if she visited every real estate office in the country. Perhaps they are under specific instructions, or maybe there are personal fears about a woman’s ability to pay her monthly rent and the difficulty of doing business with a woman when problems occur. Today a female citizen called me up and told me that she lives on welfare support due to her family’s situation. She recently requested additional funds to pay her electricity bill that couldn’t be covered by the amount she received right now. She said that others in the same situation as she was in would get their bills covered by social security. She was asked to provide a lease for a rented unit under her name, so that she could be included in the list of those electricity bills are paid once her first bill is issued after the official processing of her application. She called several real estate offices, offering them any type of written guarantee in return for a monthly or annual lease. However, every person she called refused her request. When she argued with them at their offices showing her national identity card, they ridiculed her and told her that she was created from a crooked rib and that she was a woman. She reached out to me asking me to share her struggle and the plight of other women in her shoes. She confirmed to me that many others faced the same challenge, especially when a rental lease under a woman’s name is a requirement to conduct certain official affairs. Perhaps concerned bodies should study this problem and make our female citizens feel that they belong to their country, like every other citizen around the world.