Pages from the Swedish (left) and the Saudi Arabian edition of next year's Ikea catalogue Photo: EPA

Comparing the Swedish and Saudi versions of the Ikea catalogue, Sweden's free newspaper Metro on Monday showed that women had been airbrushed out of otherwise identical pictures showcasing the company's home furnishings.

The report raised questions in Sweden about Ikea's commitment to gender equality.

The country's trade minister Ewa Bjorling did not criticise Ikea directly but told Metro that you can't delete women from society.

Ikea released a statement expressing regret, saying "We should have reacted and realised that excluding women from the Saudi Arabian version of the catalogue is in conflict with the IKEA Group values."

Women appear only infrequently in Saudi-run advertising, mostly on Saudi-owned TV channels that show women in long dresses, scarves covering their hair and long sleeves. In imported magazines, censors black out many parts of a woman's body including arms, legs and chest.

When Starbucks opened its coffee shops in the conservative, Muslim kingdom, it removed the alluring, long-haired woman from its logo, keeping only her crown.

Ikea's Saudi catalogue, which is also available online, looks the same as other editions of the publication, except for the absence of women.

One picture shows a family apparently getting ready for bed, with a young boy brushing his teeth in the bathroom. However, a pajama-clad woman standing next to the boy is missing from the Saudi version.

Another picture of a five women dining has been removed altogether in the Saudi edition.

Swedish equality minister Nyamko Sabuni noted that Ikea is a private company that makes its own decisions, but added that it also projects an image of Sweden around the world.

"For Ikea to remove an important part of Sweden's image and an important part of its values in a country that more than any other needs to know about about Ikea's principles and values - that's completely wrong," Sabuni told The Associated Press.

Jacqui Hunt, a director in the London office of Equality Now, a group aimed at addressing discrimination against woman around the world, said: "Women are equal and integral members of society and cannot just be airbrushed out. The IKEA Group has to take responsibility for the messages it is sending and take extra care, particularly as a global corporation, to promote messages of equality and non-discrimination of all peoples."

Ikea Group, one of the many branches in the company's complicated corporate structure, said it had produced the catalogue for a Saudi franchisee outside the group.

"We are now reviewing our routines to safeguard a correct content presentation from a values point-of-view in the different versions of the IKEA Catalogue worldwide," it said.

Isabella Sankey, director of Policy for Liberty, the human rights group, said:"There are sadly much worse things happening to women in Saudi Arabia than being airbrushed out of photos. But we would ask ethical companies to consider the signal they send when they make seemingly minor adjustments in countries that flout human rights."

Original article here.