That sounds like a very difficult situation to deal with. I don't work in that kind of environment, but would be interested in how other members of the community who do have handled it. Is there anyone within your company with whom you can discuss the conflict?

Nina

Hi Ahmed

How do the women feel about it? Are they pushing for the business to push for change or are they content to go along with the local status quo?

I don't have personal experience of this situation and it sounds very tricky indeed. Are there other multi-nationals with branches in the country where you are based? Is there any kind of employers association you could join. Could you even contact those other companies and set a group up?

Hi Ahmed - thank you for starting this discussion. I've been living in the GCC for over 10 years and can of course appreciate the predicament you are in: a modern company within a more conservative mentality. From my experience working with multinationals, what I see is that they tend to LEAD with their 'HQ-led' policies even when the local legislation is behind. A great example of Hilton who enforced a generous maternity leave policy in West African countries while local legislation gave zero days. WSP in engineering and EY are also known for leading the path - in fact, pushing for better practices and applying lessons learnt from other countries is part of their philosophy. A way I like to think about it is: where there is little or no legislation, there is an opportunity to go beyond compliance. To be a market leader. Assuming your local leadership hasn't bought into the argument of diversity, the argument of employer branding or appealing to the next generation of employees makes for a strong case.

I don't know which country you operate in so can't speak to specific examples, but would recommend you look for good practice within your country / and initiatives from the country's leadership (e.g. even though the regislation might be loose, there might be policies and campaigns underway to promote women's rights and gender parity as is the case in the UAE, Saudi, or even Jordan) and start with education (unless we are talking about a breach to women's integrity or rights, in which case professional judgment would call for stronger action).

Not sure if this helps? Feel free to connect with me directly or join the CIPD Middle East community on LinkedIn - lots of great knowledge-sharing there.