Swedish furniture group Ikea is really sorry it removed women from the Saudi version of its 2013 catalog after it was called out by the Stockholm edition of free daily newspaper Metro. The company, based in a country that ranks among the world’s top nations for gender equality, issued a mea culpa on Monday.

"We should have reacted and realized that excluding women from the Saudi Arabian version of the catalog is in conflict with the Ikea Group values," the company said in a statement obtained by the Associated Press.

Swedish Trade Minister Ewa Björling told the weekly that the images “show we have a long road ahead when it comes to gender equality in Saudi Arabia."

Some ad agencies in Saudi Arabia completely eschew depicting women. Faces of men and women are sometimes digitally masked to apply a more austere interpretation regarding depicting the human form in Islam, which depends on the religious leanings of individual ad agency, executive or client.

Legally speaking, the Saudi Ministry of Culture and Information allows the depiction of women as long as they are seen wearing jilbab (a loose-fitting robe that’s usually black) and hijab (the head scarf). But the regulations are far more loosely applied to foreign magazines and catalogs. For the most part, unless adult female models are depicted seductively, especially with low-hanging cleavage-revealing necklines or showing bare legs, the publication is allowed to be distributed.

However, that can change at any time and at the whim of government censors; all it takes is for one public outcry or a heavy-handed ministry censor to have all of Ikea’s catalogs removed from the marketplace. The decision to erase women from the catalog was symbolic of multinational companies’ willingness to abide by local cultural standards in order to make money even if those standards are considered reprehensible to the culture where the company is based.

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US Version of IKEAs 2013 Catalog
US version has mom in the bathroom with the family. For the Saudi version (next image), mom has been erased. IKEA
Saudi Arabian Version of IKEAs 2013 Catalog
The Saudi version of the catalog has removed the mom from the family picture (see previous slide). Notice that the images are otherwise identical, meaning a graphic designer used Photoshop's content-aware fill function to erase the woman from the picture. IKEA
US Version of IKEAs 2013 Catalog
A two-page spread of a showroom depicts three man and a woman posing for the camera in the US edition of the 2013 IKEA catalog, but see next slide... IKEA
Saudi Arabian Version of IKEAs 2013 Catalog
New Jersey couple Shirley Stewart and Berkely Smith who met in an IKEA store returned there for their wedding. IKEA
US Version of IKEAs 2013 Catalog
The image of a woman reading the paper in bed was apparently too suggestive for the culturally sensitive producers of IKEA's 2013 catalog. (See next image.) IKEA
Saudi Arabian Version of IKEAs 2013 Catalog
The woman seen reading a paper in bed in the US edition of the 2013 IKEA catalog is not there in the Saudi version. (See previous image.) In some cases women were digitally removed from photos of the Saudi catalog; in other instances, such as this one, two versions of the same image were photographed. You can imagine the model used in the previous shot was asked to step out of the scene for the Saudi version. IKEA
US Version of IKEAs 2013 Catalog
A photo in IKEA's new 2013 catalog shows two women and a man in a seemingly innocuous kitchen scene. (See next image.) IKEA
Saudi Arabian Version of IKEAs 2013 Catalog
In the Saudi Arabian version of IKEA's 2013 catalog, no people are depicted in the kitchen. The US version of the same booklet depicts two women and a man. (See previous image.) IKEA
US Version of IKEAs 2013 Catalog
Even a sliver of an adult woman was too racy for the producers of the 2013 IKEA catalog; the Saudi version (see next slide) has removed the woman and child in the image. IKEA
Saudi Arabian Version of IKEAs 2013 Catalog
The woman and child in the US version of the 2013 IKEA catalog have been removed for the corresponding image in the Saudi Arabian version of the book. IKEA