Picture this: you’re planning a vacation, applying for a job abroad, or trying to escape an unsafe situation. You fill out the passport application, gather your documents, and head to the government office. Then comes the question that stops everything cold: “Where is your husband’s signature?” For millions of women across the globe right now, this isn’t some relic from history books. It’s their reality in 2025. While most of us assume getting a passport is a basic right tied to citizenship, roughly 15% of the world’s population lives under laws that say otherwise for married women. These aren’t obscure regulations gathering dust in forgotten legal codes. They’re actively enforced policies shaping the daily lives of women who can’t board a plane, cross a border, or even renew their travel documents without a man’s permission.
What makes this even more startling is how these restrictions operate in plain sight while the rest of the world moves forward with gender equality initiatives and human rights campaigns. Some countries have made headlines for reforming their systems, yet the changes often reveal new layers of control that outsiders miss entirely. The passport issue isn’t just about travel. It’s about economic opportunity, safety, family reunification, and fundamental freedom of movement. When a woman can’t get a passport independently, she can’t flee domestic violence, accept international job offers, or take her children to visit dying relatives abroad. The implications ripple through every aspect of life in ways that statistics alone can’t capture. So let’s dive into the countries where this is happening, the legal mechanisms keeping these systems in place, and why change remains frustratingly slow despite global pressure.
The Shocking Reality of Male Guardianship Laws
Women across the Middle East and North Africa region face varying restrictions preventing them from moving freely in their own country and from traveling abroad without the permission of their male guardians – typically their fathers or brothers, and when married, their husbands. Think about what that means for a moment. In 2026, in our supposedly modern world, millions of women still need a man’s signature just to hold a piece of paper that says they’re allowed to cross a border. It’s hard to wrap your head around that, honestly.
Iran, Qatar, and Yemen remain outliers. In Iran, married women must show their husband’s permission to obtain a passport, and to travel. These aren’t small nations tucked away in isolation. These are countries with thriving economies, international connections, and participation in global affairs. Yet their laws still treat adult women like minors who can’t be trusted to make their own decisions.
The Numbers Don’t Lie
The report finds that women enjoy only two-thirds of the legal rights that men do and that the gender gap is wider than laws on the books might suggest due to insufficient legal implementation. That’s the sobering data from the World Bank’s Women. Let’s be real, when you dig into the specifics, it gets even more disturbing. The following report examines 20 countries in the Middle East and North African region and describes the different country requirements imposed on women to get their male guardians’ permission for their mobility within their country, to obtain a passport, and to travel abroad.
Yemen requires, as a matter of policy, but not law, that women of all ages need to show permission from their male guardian in order to obtain a passport. Even where laws have technically changed, the practical reality on the ground remains stubbornly discriminatory.
Iran’s Legal Stranglehold on Married Women
Iran’s law requires married women to show their husbands’ permission to obtain a passport. Single women fare better under Iranian law, but the moment they marry, their freedom vanishes. Even prominent female athletes have been affected, as Niloufar Ardalan, a footballer for the women’s national team who wasn’t able to leave Iran to play in the Asian Championship in 2015 because her husband wouldn’t allow her to renew her passport and travel.
Imagine being at the top of your sport, representing your nation, and having your own husband prevent you from competing on the world stage. The law essentially gives husbands veto power over their wives’ entire lives. This isn’t some relic from centuries past. This is happening right now.
Qatar Stands Alone Among Gulf States
Here’s something that might surprise you. Despite Qatar’s modernization efforts and hosting of the 2022 World Cup, the country remains the only remaining country in the Gulf region which continues to require male guardianship for women’s travel. The country spent billions showcasing itself to the world, building gleaming stadiums and infrastructure. Yet behind that polished facade, women still can’t travel freely without male approval.
States that allow women to obtain their own passport without showing guardian permission include Bahrain (since 2005), Egypt (since 2000), Iraq (since 2014), Israel, Jordan (since 2013), Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco (since 2004), Oman (since 2010), Palestine (since 1996), Qatar (since 2007), Syria, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates (since 2017). Wait, you might be thinking. Didn’t we just say Qatar requires guardianship? That’s the thing about these laws. They’re full of contradictions and gray areas that trap women in bureaucratic nightmares.
Yemen’s Crisis Makes Everything Worse
In areas under Houthi control in Yemen, authorities have increasingly required women to travel with a mahram or to provide evidence of their male guardians’ written approval. Parties to the conflict in Yemen, including the Houthis, the Yemeni government, and the Southern Transitional Council, are systematically violating women’s right to freedom of movement by barring women from traveling between governorates and, in some cases, from traveling abroad without a male guardian’s permission or being accompanied by an immediate male relative.
The ongoing conflict in Yemen has created a horrifying situation where all sides agree on one thing: restricting women. “If women have to travel without a mahram, they are detained at checkpoints and kept until a male guardian arrives,” This has effectively crippled aid operations in one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Female humanitarian workers trying to deliver desperately needed aid are being stopped and detained. Think about the absurdity of that for a moment.
The Children Factor Makes It Worse
Fourteen states in the region do not allow women to obtain passports for their own children on an equal basis with men. Only Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia allow women the same rights as men to apply for their children’s passports. This means that in most Middle Eastern and North African countries, a mother cannot get travel documents for her own child without the father’s permission.
In addition, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen, officially or in practice, require women to obtain permission from the child’s father to travel abroad with their children, while there is no similar requirement imposed on men. A father can take his children anywhere in the world without asking anyone. A mother faces legal barriers at every turn.
Saudi Arabia’s Complex Journey
Saudi authorities announced further changes to regulations that now allow women over 21 to travel abroad freely and obtain passports without permission from their male guardian, Human Rights Watch said today. However, the new regulations do not positively affirm the right to travel abroad, leaving open the possibility that male guardians could seek a court order to restrict female relatives’ travel. The 2019 reforms in Saudi Arabia generated global headlines. Women over 21 could finally get their own passports and travel independently. It seemed like a massive breakthrough.
While the changes are important, Saudi women still must obtain a male guardian’s approval to get married or be released from prison. In addition, as there is no anti-discrimination law – the government has no duty to actively uproot discrimination in practice, such as women’s shelters requiring a male guardian’s approval for a woman to leave, or hospitals requiring male guardian approval for surgery relating to reproductive health care, including lifesaving abortions. The progress is real, sure, but it’s incomplete. Women’s shelters requiring guardian approval? That defeats the entire purpose of a shelter. Hospitals demanding permission for lifesaving procedures? It’s genuinely shocking.
Why These Laws Exist and Persist
Those who defend such patriarchal rules in the Middle East and North Africa often claim it is for women’s own protection but these rules are inherently demeaning and in fact expose them to domestic violence. The justification always comes down to protection. Guardians supposedly keep women safe. Yet the reality shows the opposite. These laws trap women with abusive husbands and fathers.
Male guardianship policies in the region, which also exist beyond the Middle East, have been influenced by a broader history of laws and traditions around the world, including European legal traditions, that gave or still give men control over women’s lives. This isn’t just about Islam or Middle Eastern culture, though those factors play roles. European laws well into the twentieth century treated married women as legal dependents of their husbands. The difference is timing. Most countries have moved past these restrictions. Some haven’t.
The Hidden Restrictions That Remain
Some state universities, including in Bahrain, Iran, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, require women to show they have male guardian permission before they can go on field trips or stay at or leave campus accommodations or grounds. Even in countries where passport laws have been reformed, the guardianship mentality persists in countless other areas. University students, adult women pursuing higher education, still need daddy’s permission for a field trip.
In Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, male guardians and other family members can also report women to the police for being “absent” from their homes, which can lead to their arrest and forcible return home or administrative detention. Women can be arrested simply for leaving home without permission. Let that sink in.
Where Things Are Actually Changing
In a positive advance, most governments in the region now allow women to obtain passports and travel abroad without requiring guardian permission. In August 2019, after much campaigning by Saudi women’s rights activists, Saudi authorities amended its rules to allow women over age 21, like men, to obtain passports and travel without guardian permission. Progress has been made. Many countries have reformed their passport laws specifically. That’s worth acknowledging.
Restrictions on travelling abroad were loosened a year later, allowing women over the age of 21 to apply for a passport and leave the kingdom without the permission of a male guardian. While rights for women have steadily improved over the past decade under the modernising reforms of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia remains near the bottom of the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Index, coming 132nd out of 148 countries in the 2025 report. Still, legal changes on paper don’t always translate to changes in daily reality.
The Global Implications
A “yes” means women do not need a husband’s or guardian’s approval to obtain a passport. Equal rights to passports are essential for freedom of movement and travel. Restrictions can prevent women from working, studying, or traveling abroad. This isn’t just about vacation plans. When women can’t get passports, they can’t escape abusive situations. They can’t pursue education abroad. They can’t take job opportunities in other countries. Their entire worlds shrink to the size their guardians permit.
The economic costs are massive too. Closing the gender gap in employment could increase long-term GDP per capita by about 20% globally. Countries that restrict women’s freedom are literally making themselves poorer. They’re leaving money and talent on the table because of outdated attitudes about women’s capabilities.
The fight for passport equality is far from over. Women in the region are fighting rules that authorities often claim are for their protection, but that deprive women of their rights and enable men to control and abuse them at will. Activists continue pushing for change, often at great personal risk. Some have been imprisoned for demanding basic rights. Progress moves slowly, frustratingly slowly, but it does move. What will the world look like in another decade? Will we still be having these conversations about basic freedom of movement? One can only hope the answer is no.
