Saudi lawyer’s ‘know your rights’ app for women gets 50,000 subscribers

A Saudi woman lawyer, who released a smartphone app three months ago to educate and help women in her country know their legal rights, said now the app has 50,000 subscribers.

Nasreen Alissa, a corporate lawyer, launched her self-funded, free app “Know Your Rights” after discovering that women do not know their “basic rights.”

“I noticed that a lot of women do not know their rights. I go to places and gatherings, and I discovered that even the educated women do not know their rights,” Alissa said. “I thought initially of publishing a book but I realized a lot of people are on their phones. It is an app era.”

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The corporate lawyer described “the most shocking” aspect was that women did not “the basics.”

“They do not know what to do when they are in trouble. They do not know how to file for a divorce, or what happens to the custody of their children. What happens when a thief steals their jewelries, or if she falls in a mall and breaks her leg,” she said.

The lawyer, who is a mother of a boy and a girl, said the app teaches women three main principles.

“It tells the woman their rights, it teachers how to be an independent woman, and it teaches her how to file a lawsuit without the need for a lawyer,” she explained. “She does not have to waste her money.”

Alissa, who used to do pro bono cases prior to the release of the app to help women in her community, did not want to disclose how much she spent from her own pocket money on the project.

“I used to work during the weekends, and maybe on the afternoons before the app. But now after the app, I give advices through the app,” she said. “I have my own icon where I give free consultation to women.”