Saudi Arabia, UAE pledge $100 million to women entrepreneurs fund proposed by Ivanka Trump

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will reportedly pledge $100 million toward a fund for women entrepreneurs that was built by Ivanka Trump.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the World Bank’s Women Entrepreneurs Fund, an idea that the president’s elder daughter proposed, will work to help women in the Middle East who want to start their own businesses.

The donation from Saudi Arabia and the UAE was set to be announced at a Sunday event with President Trump’s daughter, according to the report.

The first daughter spoke with Saudi women who are civil leaders, businesswomen and elected government officials during the president’s first foreign trip.

The State Department has noted problems with human rights in Saudi Arabia, including “citizens’ lack of the ability and legal means to choose their government; restrictions on universal rights, such as freedom of expression, including on the Internet, and the freedoms of assembly, association, movement, and religion; and pervasive gender discrimination and lack of equal rights that affected most aspects of women’s lives,” the Washington Post reported.

{mosads}

In the conservative Islamic country, women are not allowed to drive and require permission from a male guardian to travel in public. Women are also required to cover themselves in public.

In 2016, then-Republican candidate Trump criticized Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation for accepting donations from Saudi Arabia.

“Saudi Arabia and many of the countries that gave vast amounts of money to the Clinton Foundation want women as slaves and to kill gays. Hillary must return all money from such countries!” Trump wrote on Facebook in June 2016.