JEDDAH, 10 January 2005 — Schools, students and parents complain about the behavior of teenage boys who, after finishing their exams, loiter outside girls’ schools. Many girls’ schools have had to ask the police to stop this practice and the harassment which accompanies it.
One headmistress said: “Teenage boys swarm around girls’ schools playing loud music and hoping to flirt with the girls. We have asked for police help but they are not very cooperative. They come one day and then we don’t see them for the next 10.”
The young men are on the lookout for girls waiting for their parents or drivers outside the schools. They call to the girls and throw papers with their phone numbers to them. Some of the young men even follow the girls’ cars, force the cars to stop and the girls to accept their phone numbers. Some of the boys even get out of their cars and walk over to the girls in order to give them a phone number or just force them to talk. If the girls refuse, the boys often throw things at the girls and then run away.
The police have begun to monitor girls’ schools and organize checkpoints to turn unauthorized drivers away. The secret police are also often on the scene to record cars’ license plates. A number of young men have been stopped and fined for misbehavior around girls’ schools.
Mansour Al-Subaie, whose daughters study at some of the schools, said: “I am glad that the police are taking some action against these shameless young men. As I was going to pick up one of my daughters from school, I saw a police checkpoint at which five cars full of teenage boys were being held. What business to these boys have driving around girls’ schools? Why aren’t they at home getting ready for exams? And why don’t their parents know what they are up to?”
