Womens Rights and the Middle East

Here is a story not getting a lot of play in the mainstream media and that is really pissing me off! It is the story of a Saudi woman who has been daubed in the press the "Qatif Girl" (Qatif is the part of Saudi Arabia this woman is from). He name is being withheld from the press because her story is so horrific, but it is a story that needs to be told.

The "Qatif Girl" was gang raped by seven men and she was just sentence to 200 whips and half a year in prison by the Saudi government. What was her crime: she was with a man who was not her male relative. Her orginal sentence was only 90 lashes but since she appled her case and went to the international community for help the court increased her sentence. The court said she "attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media," and for this she is getting jail time and 200 lashes. Her lawyer also got his law license revoked by the court for the same reason. The seven rapist got anywhere from two to nine years for there crime, does that sound like justice to anyone? Not me!

In December 2006 this young girl was able to get her account of what happened to a International Human Rights Group. Her story starts when she was only 16 years old. She began having a phone relationship with a man over the phone (something that is not allowed in Saudi Arabia). The girl had never seen this man before he was just befriended via the phone (apparently young men in Saudi Arabia have been known to leave their phone numbers on cards and leave them for girls to find. No real dating is allowed in Saudi and this is just one way to contact random women. It might not have been the smartest thing in the world for this girl to call one of the numbers she found, but she was only 16!!!) . After a while this man started to threaten her with telling her parents that she was talking to him. The only way he would not tell her parents is if she agreed to send him a picture of herself. So, thats what the girl did.

A few months later she asked for the photo back because she had just gotten married. He would only give the picture back if she agreed to meet with him. She met with him in a public market to get the photo back. He offered to give her a ride home (since after all women are legally not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia).

Here is where I'm just going to quote her interview, I feel its something that should be said in her own words:

"He started to drive me home. …We were 15 minutes from my house. I told him that I was afraid and that he should speed up. We were about to turn the corner to my house when they [another car] stopped right in front of our car. Two people got out of their car and stood on either side of our car. They man on my side had a knife. They tried to open our door. I told the individual with me not to open the door, but he did. He let them come in. I screamed.

"One of the men brought a knife to my throat. They told me not to speak. They pushed us to the back of the car and started driving. We drove a lot, but I didn't see anything since my head was forced down."

"They took us to an area … with lots of palm trees. No one was there. If you kill someone there, no one would know about it. They took out the man with me, and I stayed in the car. I was so afraid. They forced me out of the car. They pushed me really hard ... took me to a dark place. Then two men came in. They said, 'What are you going to do? Take off your abaya.' They forced my clothes off. The first man with the knife raped me. I was destroyed. If I tried to escape, I don't even know where I would go. I tried to force them off but I couldn't. [Another] man … came in and did the same thing to me. I didn't even feel anything after that.

"I spent two hours begging them to take me home. I told them that it was late and that my family would be asking about me. Then I saw a third man come into the room. There was a lot of violence. After the third man came in, a fourth came. He slapped me and tried to choke me.

"The fifth and sixth ones were the most abusive. After the seventh one, I couldn't feel my body anymore. I didn't know what to do. Then a very fat man came on top of me and I could no longer breathe.

"Then all seven came back and raped me again. Then they took me home. … When I got out of the car, I couldn't even walk. I rang the doorbell and my mother opened the door. She said you look tired.' I didn't eat for one week after that, just water. I didn't tell anyone. I went to the hospital the next day.

"The criminals started talking about it [the rape] in my neighborhood. They thought my husband would divorce me. They wanted to ruin my reputation. Slowly my husband started to know what had happened. Four months later, we started a case. My family heard about the case. My brother hit me and tried to kill me."