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Since King Salman's rise to the throne of Saudi Arabia in early 2015, and especially since he named his son Mohamed heir two years later, the desert kingdom is immersed in a process of reforms. An unprecedented economic and social transformation in the country that includes positive changes for women and young people. These were the two sectors that demanded reforms, in a country with more than 32 million inhabitants in which 50% are young and in which women live under a severe regime of restrictions .

The Saudi kingdom has suffered an economic decline for years and to leave the quagmire, in April 2016, Mohamed bin Salman (known as MBS) presented his Vision 2030 , an ambitious roadmap aimed at boosting the economy reducing the high dependence of the sector oil, promote infrastructure and stimulate social and cultural life, but without touching politics or increasing civil liberties in a country with serious human rights deficiencies . Its objective is to create expectations for young people (by 2030 half the population will be under 25 years old) and cement their future reign.

In addition to economic objectives - such as a privatization plan, the creation of 1.2 million jobs in the private sector and the cut in unemployment up to 9% in 2020 - the MBS visionary program includes increasing the presence of women in the workforce, which cannot be done without social changes.

Therefore, MBS has lifted some of the restrictions that limited the lives of Saudi women , such as a driving ban, and has relaxed the system by which they are subject to the authority of a guardian (their father or husband, or absence of these, your son or brother) who makes all the decisions for them are as old as they are. The authorities have removed obstacles such as the need for women to obtain a permit from their guardian to work, open a company or access to Justice and have opened labor sectors such as commerce, so far forbidden to them. Despite these positive measures, MBS has not dared to put an end to the male guardianship system, since that means shaking the political and religious bases on which the regime itself is based. Saudi Arabia is the most sex segregated country in the world . And so it will remain. Men will continue to make vital decisions that affect the women of their family, reduced to second-class citizens: how to dress, if they can study and what, who to marry ...

A United Nations report warned in February 2018 that the male guardianship system is "the key obstacle to women's participation in society and the economy." Also in sports. In London 2012, the country first sent female athletes. There were two. They had to be accompanied by their male tutors and cover their hair. The ultraconservatives called them "prostitutes." In 2015, Saudi Arabia proposed to host a Games without women and until September 2017 the women could not attend a sporting event in a stadium as a public .

MBS wants a tailor-made transformation, a controlled revolution that does not break the pillars of its regime. Hence, while imposing reforms, apply the hard hand with any dissent - as demonstrated by the murder of journalist Yamal Khashoggi in October 2018 or the arrest and torture of dozens of activists. MBS, whom Foreign Affairs magazine defines in its latest issue as a "modernizing autocrat," is a reformer but not a democrat.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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