October 1, 2012 an Ikea catalog was issued in Saudi Arabia. All the content of the catalog was the same, however something huge was missing in the pictures. Any picture that had a woman in it was edited in a way where the woman was completely erased from the picture. In any other country, the Swedish catalog had the same pictures, but it included the women. Other than this incident, Saudi Arabia is known for putting women down in public. They do not think that women should be shown freely in public and that those pictures had a negative impact on the country's reputation. Women in Saudi Arabia are expected to travel or study only with a male individual with them. Also, they are not allowed to drive any vehicles in all of Saudi Arabia.
Coming back to the subject of the Ikea catalog, the producer was not happy with the exclusion of women from the pictures. He stated, "We should have reacted to the exclusion of women from the Saudi Arabian version of the catalog since it does not align with the IKEA Group values." It is sad that during this age a country like Saudi Arabia still does not give women simple rights that they deserve.
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