Court affirms there is no basis to prevent women staying alone in hotels

Affirming that no government decision bans women from staying alone in hotels without their husbands or a male relative, an administrative court declined on Saturday to accept a suit seeking to legally oppose the widely-reported practice.

Refusing to allow women to book and stay in hotel rooms alone, some hotels in Egypt have previously claimed recourse to the tourism law or to instructions from security agencies to justify the discrimination. Mada Masr has previously spoken to women who were denied beds at hotels across the country. 

After recording a number of incidents in hotels across the country where single women under 40 from Egypt and Gulf countries were not allowed to check in to hotel rooms without a husband or male relative present, lawyers Hany Sameh and Salah Bakhit filed a suit in May with the administrative judiciary, which deals with legal contests against government bodies.

Sameh told Mada Masr that Saturday’s ruling should be considered official documentation that any woman can use to file a complaint with the police against any hotel that forbids them from checking in alone. 

The court decision, of which Mada Masr obtained a copy, included testimony from the Interior Ministry’s legal affairs department denying that the ministry has issued any orders banning unaccompanied women under the age of 40, of Egyptian nationality or otherwise, from checking into hotels, nor has it received any complaints regarding such incidents. 

According to Sameh, the Chamber of Tourist Establishments has acknowledged that such incidents have occurred during the case, but attributed them to local decisions.

Sameh is in the process of appealing the ruling before the Supreme Administrative Court since the court has not obliged the Cabinet — particularly the ministries of the interior and of tourism — to explicitly warn hotels against this practice.

He said, however, that some hotels have already stopped the practice because of the case, adding that a number of hotels responded to the court’s request for clarification by saying they later allowed women under 40 to check in alone.