Starbucks in Saudi Arabia Banned Women to Enter in their Premises

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On 1^st February 2016, Starbucks in Saudi Arabia announced that Saudi women were banned in its building premises and women should send male family members or male drivers to pick up their orders. This news circulated widely on Twitter and described that Starbucks in Riyadh is not permitting women into their Starbucks because the religious police and authorities realized that there is a lack of wall separation in the premises. This step has been taken when police observed that separation wall is necessary at Starbucks. It is important that Starbucks has banned women to enter the store when religious police officials supposedly noticed that there should be a barrier inside the coffee shop at Starbucks.

Point to be noted that driving is also not allowed for women in Saudi Arabia. The “gender barriers” or wooden partitions have been installed in most of the restaurants and food points to keep separate men and women due to it is restricted in religious to avoid any kind of sexual incident. Starbucks also issued a statement that the issue was temporary and Starbucks didn’t ban or enforced for implementation by the company. The coffee shop has the wooden partition as the other restaurants installed to keep separate men and women in such areas. Starbucks also announced on 8^th February that women were allowed to visit in the store and wooden separation is a part of Saudi culture and we respect the Saudi religious authorities. Women are not allowed to drive, vote, work, study or visit to the doctor without interaction of a male in Saudi Arabia.