The male guardianship system in Saudi Arabia is not just law: it is a set of bylaws and state-sanctioned discriminatory policies and practices that restrict a woman’s ability to have a wide range of choices unless permitted by her male guardian – typically a father, husband, brother or even a son.

In practice, it means women are unrecognised by the state as full legal adults.

This year, female activists joined forces to promote abolishing the system through a petition and received massive online support. It seemed that, contrary to earlier campaigns for women for municipal participation or driving, this campaign had a life of its own. Women activists submitted a letter to the Royal Advisory Council in 2014 and though women members of the council expressed support no significant change ensued.

This time I drafted the petition to the king around Saudi’s national transformation plan and urged him to consider the significant impact of the guardianship system on the risk to women of poverty, exploitation and domestic violence. The impact of the guardianship system on women’s lives has long been highlighted by human rights organisations, as well as by local community figures. The United Nations special rapporteur for violence against women submitted a report in 2008 in which she attributed violence against women to the male-guardianship system and the enforced gender-segregation policy, both of which limited women’s ability to escape or report violence. Human Rights Watch outlined in detail the restrictions of the guardianship system on women in 2008 and 2016.

I highlighted the incompatibility of the system with Saudi laws and how it places a huge burden on the state’s administrative, financial and judicial resources, as well as on the guardians themselves, who may not necessarily be able to provide the needed permissions because of their absence at work or on military service. I also reminded the king that there is no basis for that system in Islam, as supported by Islamic scholars.

Abolishing the system will have a profound impact on the untapped potential of women’s economic participation. We called on the king to enforce regulations and measures to allow women to obtain all forms of identification cards, take advantage of all educational and professional opportunities, choose a place of residence, travel, obtain any form of medical or emergency service, have access to services from private or public institutions, get release from prisons, rehabilitation or correctional facilities or apply for jobs anywhere without a guardian permission.

In about a month, nearly 15,000 online signatures from men and women of all backgrounds and regions of Saudi Arabia were collected. It was marvellous to see physicians, students, graduates, businesswomen, professors, teachers and residents of cities big and small listed. On the two days leading up to the petition, an estimated 2,500 women sent direct telegrams to the Saudi king’s office imploring him to end the guardianship system. Activist Aziza Al-Yousef mailed the petition to the royal court after being instructed to do so when she tried to deliver it in person, but there has been no response so far.

The mainstream religious lobby was immediately on the defensive. Saudi Arabia’s highest Islamic figure, the grand mufti, denounced the call to abolish guardianship as a crime against Islam. On the other hand, a number of key religious figures supported ending guardianship on the basis that the system does not have a grounding in Islam; a conflicting scenario typical to every public demand to reform women’s rights. State officials repeatedly attribute delays in enforcing gender equality to cultural beliefs.

A few years back, my 10-year-old nephew told me of an Islamic studies teacher in his international school who acted like a clown in front of his class of male pupils to demonstrate how a woman can supposedly behave irrationally in dealing with death to justify the religious opinions banning women from attending burials.

Similar, more subtle, messages in Saudi Arabia’s all male-dominated spheres are rarely challenged by intimidated youth, including my loving nephew, for fear of pressure from peers or authority figures.

The political will that created those norms and fostered this culture would require more than wishful thinking or simply waiting for society-wide acceptance. The royal decrees that allowed women to sit on Saudi’s royal advisory council and the municipality passed without significant societal resistance; this method could be called upon again to abolish the guardianship system that causes so much harm to Saudi women.