沙特女性内衣店开招女店员

在严格遵守男女隔离政策的沙特阿拉伯，女性是不允许在公共场合工作的。因此，连女性内衣店的店员都基本是男性。这让很多女性消费者颇为尴尬，同时要求改革的呼声也日益高涨。为了改变这一状况，沙特阿拉伯劳工部曾两次颁布法令要求该行业雇佣女性店员，但执行者寥寥。近日，沙特劳工部再发通告，要求所有女性内衣店在6个月内将所有男店员换为女店员，逾期未执行者，其内衣店将被强行关闭。据悉，雇佣女性店员的内衣店要承担店员的培训费；同时还需遮蔽店内的所有橱窗以防止有人从外面窥视；另外还需雇佣一名男性门卫在门口值守，阻止男性进入内衣店。很多内衣店迟迟不肯执行就是因为雇佣女店员不但会增加其运营成本，还会面临销售额下滑的局面。

Women in Saudi Arabia, one of the world's most conservative societies, still have to buy their intimate clothing from male clerks, despite several petitions and two government decrees ordering businesses to hire women.

Saudi lingerie stores are dragging their feet on an official deadline to avoid embarrassing female shoppers by replacing their male sales clerks with women, saying the change will create staff problems, lose them customers and cost them money.

Women in Saudi Arabia, one of the world's most conservative societies, still have to buy their intimate clothing from male clerks, despite several petitions and two government decrees ordering businesses to hire women.

In an effort to enforce the regulations, the Labour Ministry threatened on July 11 to close any lingerie shops that failed to replace all male staff within six months.

"We read about the order in newspapers but we did not receive any instructions (from management)... This plan can work but not at the speed they are expecting. The women have to be trained from scratch," said Tarek, a store manager at a lingerie shop in Jeddah.

In Saudi Arabia's conservative society, where religious police patrol the streets to enforce segregation of the sexes, women are not allowed to work in public places where they have contact with men, such as sale clerks or cashiers.

Shops that hire females must bear the cost of training them, cover their display windows to block the view into the stores and hire a male security guard, for at least 3,500 riyals ($930) a month, during work hours to keep men from entering.

One of Saudi Arabia's leading lingerie brands, Nayomi, made the switch after the first government decree was issued in 2004, staffing their 45 stores with female clerks only to revert to male employees a year later.

"In 2004, we implemented the order and hired women ... we faced a lot of problems," said a manager at Nayomi, who asked not to be identified. "The experience lasted about a year and we lost a lot of money, over 10 million riyals."

Poor sales owing to a lack of male customers, the high cost of ensuring security, the inability to lure customers with a window display and the reluctance of some women employees to work late shifts in a country where shops stay open until 11 pm led to the losses.

The Nayomi manager estimated that a switch to women only staff now would cost over 2 million riyals.

Pressure to hire women is driven by growing unemployment among the 18 million Saudis. Unemployment reached 10 percent in 2010 but for women the rate is estimated around 28 percent.

While many lingerie shops are not taking the threat too seriously, a small number have begun preparations.

The Fawaz Abdulaziz Al Hokair Group, which has 400 male employees in its three lingerie brands throughout the kingdom, has started training 200 females to take over their stores soon.

"We have joined with a private company to train the women. There are no trained women here because they did not work in that field before," said Ahmad Sheikh El Shabab, brand manager of La Senza, one of Al Hokair's lingerie brands in Saudi Arabia.

"The decision is great because worldwide the lingerie shops are managed by women, and that is how it should be especially in this conservative country. Many women get embarrassed buying these things from men," he said.