Egypt Restricts Women’s Travel to Saudi Arabia Based on Employment and Education Level
Cairo, Egypt — For most of her life, Heba Mohamed dreamed of going on a religious pilgrimage to Mecca. In late October, the 48-year-old Muslim woman from the rural Egyptian province of Kafr El-Sheikh finally headed to Cairo Airport to catch her flight to Saudi Arabia — only to be turned away at immigration.
Mohamed was told that a new directive issued in October by the Egyptian government stipulates that women whose IDs indicate they are “housewives” or “unemployed” are no longer eligible to travel to Saudi Arabia until they obtain prior approval from the immigration authority.
Enforced by Egypt’s Passport, Immigration, and Nationality Authority, the directive imposes travel restrictions on women categorized as “lower categories”—those holding only a high school diploma or a two-year college degree, without an undergraduate university degree. These restrictions extend to women traveling on tourist, work, trade, and transit visas.
The Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights (ECWR) argues that these decisions violate Articles 8, 11, and 53 of the Egyptian Constitution, undermining social solidarity and justice (Article 8), gender equality (Article 11), and the principle of non-discrimination among all citizens (Article 53).
The move has also sparked widespread backlash among Egyptian citizens, who say it sets a dangerous precedent on the ability for Egyptian women to move freely and engage in their religious practices.
“Since when did educational level [become] the measure of who gets to exercise their basic rights and who doesn’t?” Mohamed told More to Her Story. She said she was subjected to navigating a bureaucratic labyrinth in Egypt’s centralized government office in Cairo, miles away from her home, and still walked away with more questions than answers regarding her ability to travel.
The Egyptian government considers women working in 22 professions, including babysitters, housekeepers, beauty experts, fashion designers, and home nurses, as “lower categories.” Unemployed women holding one or two-year university degrees, referred to in Egypt as intermediate qualifications or diplomas, are also placed in this category and must secure prior approval from the Immigration Authority office in Cairo before traveling to Saudi Arabia.
However, several women told More to Her Story the process of doing so was complicated and lacked a clear implementation process, with many reportedly turned away at the airport.
Some experts fear the impacts of these mandates on women will be profound amid Egypt’s deep-seated economic challenges. Approximately three million Egyptians work abroad in Saudi Arabia’s domestic labor market, and female participation in the workforce is around 15 to 21 percent. Although the mandate exempts travel for religious purposes, experts warn that its enforcement will rely on the discretion of immigration officers, who must decide whether a traveler’s intent is religious or employment-related. The decision, thus, threatens to violate Egypt’s Constitution and international human rights obligations, says lawyer and feminist activist Intissar Al-Saeed.
“The decision was issued even though it revives discriminatory measures we thought were long gone,” Al-Saeed told More to Her Story, adding the decision stigmatizes targeted groups such as housewives and domestic workers .
“These professions are appreciated in civilized societies as an integral part of the economy, but the verbiage used here diminishes their status and insults them,” said Al-Saeed.
Officials at the Immigration Authority did not immediately reply for comment.
Mohamed Salem, a member of the Union of Egyptian Expats in Saudi Arabia, told More to Her Story that the mandate is likely intended to protect vulnerable women, particularly those with less education. He noted that many women are often targeted by fraudulent work agencies that offer false promises of employment abroad, only to exploit them.
“[The fraudulent agencies] promise them decent jobs only to find themselves with no shelter or support when they arrive in Saudi Arabia,” said Salem."Some women were forced to be domestic workers or waitresses in harsh and unstable conditions; others were subjected to physical assaults, even rape.”
He explained that these women’s employment is sometimes terminated suddenly by their Saudi employers and are left with no severance.
According to Egypt’s Ministry of Manpower, Egypt is home to 865 official recruitment agencies authorized to facilitate overseas employment. Periodically, the Egyptian government updates this list and revokes the licenses of companies deemed fraudulent toward Egyptian citizens. This year alone, 361 companies had their licenses revoked.
Some women who were turned away at the airport told More to her Story they felt they were being judged by authorities for simply aspiring to a better life.
Heba Mohamed said the treatment she received at the airport was both discriminatory and insulting: “Why has travelling to Saudi Arabia become a luxury granted only to a few?”
Samah Al-Gharbawi, 40, runs an import and export business in Saudi Arabia and was also subject to the Immigration Authority’s maze in early November, when the mandate was first implemented. At her local airport in Egypt, she waited in long lines and interacted with airport employees who were equally as confused about how to navigate the new government directive.
Mariam Mohamed, 35, said her work visa was rejected by immigration authorities at her local airport due to her employment being slotted into a “lower category.”
Travel restrictions of this nature are part of a growing trend regionally. In recent years, similar travel mandates have been instituted in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Yemen, Algeria, and Libya, where male guardianship systems are also applied. Although some of these countries, like Saudi Arabia, have recently eased these restrictions, advocates fear Egypt’s restrictions are becoming stricter.
The restrictions also perpetuate the economic and social gender gap, given that women make up a significant portion of informal workers and are overrepresented in low-wage sectors, says civil rights lawyer Nehad Aboul Qomsan.
“These policies will increase the precariousness of women’s conditions,” says Aboul Qomsan, “and limit their opportunity to achieve financial independence, reinforcing systematic patterns of discrimination. This decision turns the clock back, at a time when women need empowerment.”