What are the limits to cultural sensitivity? Do those limits include active or passive complicity in human rights violations? Are there some countries where an ethical organization just cannot do business? When we disagree with local standards, do we do better to stay out, or to dive in and hope that engagement (on their terms) will eventually lead to change? >>>
LINK: Why is Algonquin supporting Saudi Arabia’s gender Apartheid? (by Shannon Dea for The Ottawa SUn)
… consider Algonquin College’s male-only campus in Jazan, Saudi Arabia. Like blacks under Apartheid, Saudi women are substantially deprived of legal and political autonomy, and are in a range of ways subject to the will of those in power. Saudi women must seek permission from their male guardians for activities ranging from travel to marriage to undergoing medical procedures.
Like blacks in South Africa [during that country’s apartheid years], Saudi women are excluded from many forms of public participation, suffer serious economic limitations, and are subject to state-sanctioned violence…..
What do you think?
See also: When is a country too corrupt for Canadians to do business there?
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