Progress in the Middle East

Saudi Arabia has passed an unprecedented law that criminalizes domestic violence against women, children and domestic workers, a human rights official said Thursday. Rights activists hailed the development but cautioned that Saudi Arabia, named by the World Economic Forum as one of the five worst countries in which to be a woman, still has a long way to go.

"This is just the beginning, and it's an excellent step, but the road is long," Ibrahim Almugaiteeb, president of Human Rights First Society in Saudi Arabia, told Al Jazeera. "It will be like the civil rights movement was in the United States."

  alJazeera