Go to school. Get a job. Get married. Go to the hospital, get a license, travel, access your bank account, get a divorce, have access to a shelter when you don't feel safe at home. Women in the U.S. don't have to worry about doing these things. Women in the U.S. can do these without hesitation, without permission. It is their freedom that allows them to do these things. The Middle East is a different story, most specifically in Saudi Arabia. The things listed are things that require permission from a husband, father, brother, or son. Women and their basic human rights are oppressed by Male Guardianship policies, which render them legal minors.

In Saudi Arabia, health officials require a guardian's permission for a woman to undergo an operation or receive emergency care. In Iraq, women are required to have a guardian's approval to obtain a passport. So just like a 16-year-old has to get permission from their parents to get a tattoo, women of all ages have to ask their husbands for written permission to travel abroad.

There is a misconception about the Male Guardianship system in the Middle East. While there are some policies that crossover into other areas of the region, such as Iraqi women requiring a guardian's approval for a passport, the country where the issue is mainly focused is Saudi Arabia. This is because not every country in the Middle East has an Islamic government.

While other countries still adopt Islamic practices, it's very moderate and "a better representation of what Islam is," according to Deena Raef, a 21-year-old college student at the University of Southern Maine. In Saudi Arabia, however, Islamic practices are strictly followed, which include those of Male Guardianship.

According to dozens of Saudi women in a 2016 report by Human Rights Watch, the Male Guardianship system is "the most significant impediment to realizing women's rights in the country." While this system is in power, women lose their fundamental human right to make decisions for themselves. The bylaws and state-sanctioned policies in place that make up the Male Guardianship system, transcend into parts of government such as the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Labor and Social Development, and even the Ministry of Health. The system puts rules into place that give the government the power to turn away women from medical treatment without her guardian's permission, travel outside the country without a guardian's approval, and even pay large sums of money without consent.

Even though these policies do prohibit women from making important decisions in different areas of their lives, women do have different experiences with this system. A woman's "experience" depends on her guardian. Human Rights Watch noted that dozens of women from Saudi Arabia claimed to be fortunate in having guardians who supported them and allowed them to work, travel, etc. but said that "they should not require permission to make these choices in the first place." Sometimes a woman's guardian is her son. One woman told Human Rights Watch that her 64-year-old widowed mother had to seek her 27-year-old son's permission to travel. According to Ministry of Interior regulations, a guardian must apply for and collect a passport for women and minors. The government's electronic portal requires a male guardian to make the actual application for or the renewal of a woman's passport. So if the 64-year-old woman gets invited to a conference in London, and her 27-year-old son is "too busy" to fill out the online application that allows her to travel, she's paralyzed.

There have been several attempts to abolish these policies in recent years, women's rights activists have repeatedly gone to the government to abolish this system. In both 2009 and 2013, the Saudi Arabian government agreed to do just this after its universal periodic review (UPR) at the United Nations Human Rights Council. Following both hearings, limited steps were taken by the state to reform the guardianship system. While no longer requiring permission from a guardian for a woman to work and criminalizing domestic abuse since then, the system remains mostly intact.

So what can we as Americans do? For starters, we can get educated. We can do our research, ask questions, learn what we don't know and further what we do know. We start conversations; we can talk about what's going on in our world and what we could do to help. Raise awareness of the issue by writing to your local government, start petitions, and get the conversation started.

Anna Christie is a senior at Camden Hills Regional High School. This semester she has been taking part in a Global Competency Endorsement program, which deals with civic engagement and issues in our world. Christie chose to write an article discussing the issue of Male Guardianship policies in the Middle East, and how they restrict women's basic human rights.