Saudi Arabia to recruit women to religious police force The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, as the force is officially known, said it would soon form an all-women unit, ending a long-standing ban on female officers. Officially the reform is being presented as the latest in a series of steps by King Abdullah to improve female employment opportunities. As many as half of Saudi women are thought to be out of work, largely because they are banned from holding many jobs. They are also only allowed to work with the explicit permission of a male guardian. Although the king last year allowed women to work in lingerie shops, he has refused them permission to drive - a prohibition that means that many women cannot work because they cannot get to work. Unnerved by the Arab Spring, Abdullah has sought to rein in the worst excesses of the religious police. The force has regularly doled out beatings and ordered detentions for even the most minor of infringements of the Islamic mores. But earlier this month Sheikh Abdullatif, appointed by the king in January with a clear reformist mandate, announced that the force would be stripped of its authority to detain and question suspects.