Modi to visit to all-women business centre in Saudi Arabia

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will send out a subtle message on women’s empowerment during his visit to Saudi Arabia.

Modi, who will be on a tour to the conservative kingdom on Saturday and Sunday, is set to meet Saudi Arabian women professionals during a visit to an “all-female” Business Process Service Centre that India’s Information Technology major Tata Consultancy Service set up in Riyadh a couple of years ago.

His visit to the TCS’s first-of-its-kind all-female facility and his interaction with the employees will send out a message on women’s empowerment in Saudi Arabia, a nation which was ranked 134 out of 145 countries in the Global Gender Gap Report 2015 put out by the World Economic Forum.

“This is the first BPO (business process outsourcing) operation by any company in the world in Saudi Arabia, more so for women. So, it is a very important statement that we will be making there (by the visit of Prime Minister),” Mridul Kumar, Joint Secretary (Gulf) in the Ministry of



External Affairs, told journalists in New Delhi, after making public the prime minister’s itinerary in Riyadh, including his plan to visit the TCS facility.

 The TCS and US-based multinational General Electric own 76% and 24% of the equity in the all-women business centre in Riyadh. It started operation in January 2014 with about 80 women employees to primarily serve GE and Saudi Aramco as “anchor clients”. The facility now employs about 1000 Saudi women and is likely to offer employment opportunities to 2000 more. Women enjoy limited social and political rights in Sharia-ruled Saudi Arabia. 

The kingdom still does not allow women to drive. Women constituted only 13% of Saudi Arabia’s native workforce 2015. The nation was under international focus for its poor records in protecting human rights and encouraging women empowerment.

It was only in last December that Saudi Arabia finally allowed its women to contest elections and cast votes, but only in municipal polls.