Imagine you are told, every single day of your life, where you are allowed to go and where you are not; when you can go there and when you can’t; what you can wear and what is not allowed, what you can and cannot do, say, listen to or even watch. As you grow older and you gain the experience of age and experience, things do not get easier; in fact, they get even more difficult. This is the life of the average Saudi woman. RELATIVTY OnLine’s valiant Saudi Arabian correspondent Eman AL Nafjan once again reveals the war she is waging within her own culture to effect change. She reveals not Arab world thinking, not Muslim doctrine, but the backwards, ultra-conservative thought process that has hi-jacked both an ethnicity and a religion to serve the insecurities of an outdated social structure.
Ultra-conservative Saudi families, and they are a majority, have a general dynamic that few Saudis could deny. Like old-fashioned western family ideologies, the father is the breadwinner, the mother takes care of the home-front, the sons are served and tolerated and the daughters are the bit of fluff that flutters around the house.
But unlike most other cultures, daughters also have to contend with constant supervision of their every move. A job that some brothers feel falls on their shoulders. No matter what age a woman is, many families believe that as long as she is single, she is a liability. This translates into horrific intrusions of privacy and personal freedom. In one extreme case, a family I know has no locks on any of the doors including the bathroom doors, so that to insure the daughters cannot seclude themselves and do anything inappropriate; pre-approval of clothing, whether at home or when leaving the house, is common.
A friend of mine once told me she had to sit for over two hours in an uncomfortable position because she had pajama pants on and was afraid her father, who had come early from work, would see them. And this is not only with teenage girls, but also adult women… even divorced mothers. So what’s a girl to do in this situation? Many go by the Arabic saying that translates into “a woman has only three places in this world: her family’s home, her husband’s home or her grave”.
So the majority wait patiently for their knight to rescue them, others commit suicide and a few run away.
In 2007, there were 850 reported cases of runaways. The key phrase in the last statement is reported cases.Local statistics and studies on such issues are vague best and mostly inaccessible to the general public. But it does not take a social worker to see what usually happens when a girls decides to take matters into her own hands. Most Saudi girls do not just open the front door and leave. In the cases I know of, the majority would go to a relative’s house and seek refuge there and the issue is resolved or hushed up within the family. The more adventurous have prior arrangements with men that they meet online or have a phone relationship with. These girls put there fate into treacherous hands. They are taken to apartments or the desert and raped by not only the guy they ran away with but also his friends and then dropped off at the door of their houses again. In one case, the guy had a guilt trip and offered to marry the runaway he took advantage of but strangely her father ignored the offer.
Other girls head straight to the emergency room at the nearest hospital, hoping to find refuge within governmental provisions and these girls end up, like the rest, right where they started – at the mercy of their guardians.
A couple of months ago, newspapers reported the murder of two sisters as their father was picking them up from the police. Their brother shot the two in the backseat of the car before the father even turned on the engine. His motive was to cleanse his family name from the shame of having runaways. Later the father forgave the son and so he was spared the death penalty, but still has to serve time.
A motive that drives other girls to runaway is marriage, whether to get out of it or to marry someone that their family won’t allow. Despite a law that states that a woman cannot leave the country without the approval of her guardian, many of these ladies manage through forgery to turn up abroad. Last year Indian police confiscated a Saudi runaway in her 20s with her Indian driver/lover. She was unhappy with her much older husband and decided to elope with the driver.
An unreported incident that was gossiped about in my circle was the case of two Qaseemi girls who mysteriously turned up in Egypt after one of them fell for an Egyptian working in Saudi Arabia. What they don’t tell you in all of these cases is what happens after they are caught and brought back to their families. The government only provides extremely basic and temporary protection for these girls. There are safe-houses in most major cities but women are only allowed to stay temporarily and their guardians/abusers are notified. Granted that the guardian is made to a sign a pledge that they will not harm her, however it is in the end just a piece of paper. What help is it to the girl once she’s back in the midst of her brothers and uncles anxious to salvage the family name? The authorities, to my knowledge, do not follow through with follow-up visits, mandatory counseling or any form of protection of the girl’s interests.
Just another slice of life in Saudi Arabia…
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I made my daughter read this. Now she thinks I wasnt as bad as she once thought. Hard to beleive this still happens and is allowed to happen. So many souls, so many minds, trapped within themselves. Secrets must run deep.
A nice slice of life indeed. Why is this tolerated? Is there no one in the region who will stand up? Is it becuase they have the most oil?? What a shameful way to raise children, to treat fellow human beings. This certainly does very little to enhance the reputation of the region. It’s hard to argue when someone says they have some real nut cases over there. People have to do something, but what?
I mean no offense when I say this, but its these kind of stories that make non-Muslim countries fear Islam and not want it to spread in their nations. Who would want this kind of thinking to be a part of any country???
Women who speak up and tell stories that need to be told in places where they are not supposed to are real heroes. I read your biography and it seems you were raised in an open-minded way. It must be so frustrating for you. Do you think the fact you lived in the U.S. effected your thinking or your family’s? Are women born and raised in Saudi as likely to think the same way you do?
Marlene even before we lived in the USA my parents were a bit more progressive than their peers and yes of course that greatly affected the way I was raised. And there is a huge slice of society who are like my family especially in the major cities.
Serverten : what you are saying shows your lack of knowledge. The fact is that what happens in Saudi Arabia is more connected to their traditions and beliefs than it is abourt being a Muslim. As a Palestinian Jordanian Muslim who lives in another Muslim country, we don’t have that at all. Whatyou see or hear from Saudi Arabia is just in Saudi Arabia. People need to know that when you judge a whole religion because of one country. You can’t somply ignore the other 21 Arab Muslim countries.
In fact in Islam, our profit encouraged Muslims to treat non-Muslims with respect. He also told people to take care of their neighbors even if they are non-Muslims. Our religion is more valuable and more tolerant that waht you see, but unfortunately it’s been represented by a small group of crazy people who act nothing like this.