Reading the local press, you’ll find lots of news, stories, studies and, above all, interesting quotes that stick in your mind, and as you think about them, they make you want to scream or laugh or just be amazed at the state of things.
Some of them, however, are interesting for a specific reason; they may not make you want to scream but make you want to study their implications as well as the mentality and atmosphere which can produce them.
According to a study in the Arabic daily, Al-Watan, one in five children in Saudi Arabia is systematically abused.
The study goes on to say that psychological abuse accounts for 33.6 percent of the cases; physical abuse is next at 25.3 percent; violent threats at 32 percent and verbal abuse at 21 percent. A serious and worry-inducing study, reflecting a serious problem in our society that affects not only its present well-being but also its future.
The study seems to suggest that educated working mothers might be partly to blame, since during working hours, they leave their children with servants. In other words, according to what the study implies, educated women are a problem in terms of child abuse.
What the study did not say was that even in cases of non-working mothers, children may also be neglected and in all cases, abuse includes physical and psychological damage that is done to the children.
Maybe a second study should be done, focusing on how children in our society are treated by fathers, family members, teachers and their associates. And maybe this new study should include girls — they were not included in the original study.
In another paper another story caught my eye. The Ministry of Commerce has banned the importation of all stuffed toys and dolls into the Kingdom, giving the stores three months to get rid of their stocks.
Part of the news item explained that toys that carry religious symbols are the main target of this campaign and other toys that are, for whatever reasons, seen as un-Islamic.
Now I would like to know where the ministry employees discovered toys with religious symbols. I have never seen anything like that.
As far as stuffed toys go, what is the reason for depriving children of soft toys that are educational and safe to play with? How else can you show a toddler what animals look like.
How can you get a child to understand the animal world if you deprive him of such an important medium? At the same time, I am amazed to note that while these soft toys are banned, plastic guns, knives, swords, machine guns, hand grenades and such things are all readily available. Don’t those toys incline children to violence?
A third report from the president of the educational affairs committee in the Shoura Council explained why he had voted against physical education in girls’ schools.
This issue has been debated and discussed for a long time and while the president voted against it, a large majority of his fellow Shoura members voted for it.
The president said that he did not see a relationship between obesity and the absence of PE in girls’ schools. He said that obesity among boys was on the rise and thus he concluded that it was not a reason for allowing it in girls’ schools. So I guess obesity is not a good excuse to exercise.
No further comment.
