The Fiji TimesWorries over WC costume codes shrugged off

DOHA, Qatar — Coming from Brazil for the World Cup in Qatar, Daniela Crawford had been frightened about conservative costume codes. However like many ladies attending the match, she stated she discovered no issues.

“In Brazil individuals are used to it, however we got here right here and determined to indicate how we’re,” stated Crawford — sporting shorts — as she took footage with a Brazilian flag along with her husband and two sons exterior Doha’s Training Metropolis Stadium earlier than the Brazil-Croatia quarter-final match.

This was the primary World Cup held in an Arab and Muslim nation. Within the lead-up, the Qatari authorities, world soccer physique FIFA and nationwide governments suggested folks attending from around the globe to respect native customs, on every thing from ladies’s costume to consuming.

Many ladies followers chatting with The Related Press stated that regardless of worries, they’ve encountered no troubles and solely needed to make minor changes in how they dressed. Some welcomed Qatar’s tight restrictions on alcohol, saying it made them really feel safer. Qatar, in the meantime, is presenting the match as a possibility to beat stereotypes about ladies’s position there.

Qatar is a conservative nation, and most Qatari ladies in public put on the headband and loose-fitting robes. Nevertheless it’s additionally house to a global inhabitants of greater than 2 million overseas employees, far outnumbering the round 300,000 residents — so it’s hardly unused to overseas ladies.

Bemie Ragay, a Filipina girl who has labored in Qatar for eight years, stated she had at all times felt protected, “safer than my nation”.

Apparel just isn’t a difficulty so long as you recognize the boundaries, she stated, declaring that she was sporting a crop high.

“You’ll be able to’t simply stroll right here on the street in a backless (outfit). You need to respect their tradition,” she stated.

Isabeli Monteiro, a 32-year-old Brazil supporter, stated she was sporting longer skirts as a substitute of shorts and has had no issue.

“No one appears at us in any method, particularly as a result of we’re inside a World Cup with completely different cultures from everywhere in the phrase.”

Girls performed an integral position in organising the World Cup, together with a number of in excessive positions within the Supreme Committee, the physique accountable for the match, stated Fatma Al Nuaimi, the SC spokesperson.

She stated she hoped one legacy of the match could be to vary attitudes about ladies within the area.

“Lots of people even have a misperception, particularly with regards to the position of girls in Qatar or within the area,” she stated. Followers coming to Qatar see that “ladies do have rights and girls are literally being empowered,” she stated.

Qatar has stated enhancing the scenario of girls within the tiny Gulf nation is one in every of its priorities. Girls maintain various distinguished authorities and tutorial positions, together with three ministers within the Cupboard. The mom of its ruling emir, Sheikha Moza bint Nasser al-Missned, is among the most well-known ladies within the Arab world, identified for advocating for social causes.

Qatar additionally has one of many strongest charges of girls’s schooling within the Arab world. The variety of Qatari ladies in college is twice the variety of Qatari males, and almost all Qatari kids — girls and boys — attend main faculty.

Nonetheless, the nation has for years sat close to the underside of the World Financial Discussion board’s International Gender Hole Report, which tracks gaps between men and women in employment, schooling, well being and politics.

Rights teams have pointed specifically to legal guidelines that require a male guardian’s permission for a girl to journey or marry, and so they say ladies usually want the identical permission to work or for some types of reproductive well being care, together with pap smears.

About 37 per cent of Qatari ladies work, excessive for the area, but it surely has remained stage lately , in keeping with authorities statistics.

By comparability, Saudi Arabia has seen a extra aggressive development, with the share of Saudi ladies with jobs rising from 14 per cent in 2019, one of many lowest within the area, to just about 27 per cent this 12 months.

Mead El-Amadi, director of the FIFA Fan Pageant in Doha, stated ladies concerned in organising the match could be position fashions for different ladies who needed to enter the enterprise of soccer or sports activities on the whole.

“Globally, soccer is a male-dominated sport,” she stated.

However she stated ladies organisers had help of their male colleagues “to make this occur and to make the world have a look at us immediately, delivering this big occasion”.