[custom_adv] Saudi women have joined the Baloot Championship in Riyadh for the first time, playing the popular card game against men in the hope of winning a SR2 million ($533,333) prize. [custom_adv] During the late 20th and early 21st centuries, women's rights in Saudi Arabia have been severely limited in comparison to the rights of women in many of its neighboring countries due to the strict interpretation and application of sharia law. [custom_adv] The World Economic Forum's 2016 Global Gender Gap Report ranked Saudi Arabia 141 out of 144 countries for gender parity, down from 134 out of 145 in 2015. The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) elected Saudi Arabia to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women for 2018–2022, in a move that was widely criticised by the international community. [custom_adv] Women in Saudi Arabia constituted 13% of the country's native workforce as of 2015. In 2019, 34.4% of the native workforce of Saudi Arabia were women. [custom_adv] Among the factors that define rights for women in Saudi Arabia are government laws, the Hanbali and Wahhabi schools of Sunni Islam, and traditional customs of the Arabian Peninsula. [custom_adv] Women campaigned for their rights with the women to drive movement and the anti male-guardianship campaign, with the results of vast improvements to their status occurred during the second decade of the twenty-first century. [custom_adv] Saudi women have joined the Baloot Championship in Riyadh for the first time, playing the popular card game against men in the hope of winning a SR2 million ($533,333) prize.
