Saudi Arabia ends gender segregation in restaurants

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Saudi Arabia will no longer require restaurants to have separate entrances segregated by sex, the government says.

Previously, it was mandatory to have one entrance for families and women, and another for men on their own.

The restrictions had already been quietly eased in practice, with many restaurants, cafes and other meeting places no longer enforcing segregation.

A series of sweeping social reforms in Saudi Arabia has been accompanied by an intensified crackdown on dissent.


Earlier this year, a royal decree allowed Saudi women to travel abroad without a male guardian's permission, and in 2018 the Gulf kingdom ended a decades-long ban on female drivers.

But activists complain that many laws discriminatory against women remain in place. And several prominent women's rights advocates have been arrested even as the government has made reforms.