Saudi boycott seeks women to sell lingerie

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RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Feb. 13 (UPI) -- Saudi women were asked Saturday to boycott stores that employ male clerks to sell women's underwear.

Organizers of the boycott said the Labor Ministry has done nothing to implement its own directive in 2005 that women should be trained to work in those stores, Arab News reported. They hope at least 40,000 women will support them.

"If you really care about women's rights and you are in Saudi Arabia, then starting from the 13th of February 2010 and for two weeks boycott all lingerie shops that employ men," a statement in Al-Madinah newspaper said. "The contradiction is in the fact that we are supposedly the most conservative nation in the world and yet women here divulge their bra and undie sizes and colors to strange men on a regular basis."

The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice says women should be able to work in lingerie shops as long as the shops are located in malls open to women only.