Gulf women fear Jordan, Morocco entry into GCC

A bid by Jordan and Morocco to join a Gulf Arab alliance has already triggered fears among women in the oil-rich region that local men could turn to those two countries for wives. Many women from Saudi Arabia and other members of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) called a prominent Saudi social and religious adviser to express their fears about the entry of Jordan and Morocco into the 30-year-old GCC. At summit talks in Riyadh last week, GCC leaders welcomed a request by the two Arab nations to join the GCC and instructed their foreign ministers to follow up their issue. “I have received phone calls from many women in Saudi Arabia and other GCC countries expressing their fears that their men and their husbands could turn to Morocco and Jordan for wives, saying the admission of those two countries to the GCC will facilitate this,” said Sheikh Gazi Al Shammari, a family adviser at a pubic establishment in the eastern Saudi port of Dammam. Quoted by the Saudi Sabq daily, Shammari said he was shocked by the “narrow-minded attitudes” of GCC women towards this issue. “I call on Gulf women not to be scared and to have more self-confidence…marriage is our destiny and the plans to admit Jordan and Morocco to the GCC is only intended to serve the interests of Gulf and Arab countries as well as the Islamic nation and to bolster relations among the people of our Arab and Moslem nations.”