RIYADH, 27 October 2006 — Guards at girls schools and colleges are being blamed for failing to stop the shabab (youths) from harassing girls when they leave school and for not giving due consideration to issues relating to sex segregation.

Muna, a school administrator in Riyadh, said that one day she and her colleagues were shocked to see male cleaners entering their offices.

“The men had brought some school teaching material from the Education Ministry. The guard at the gate had ordered them to bring the stuff inside the school and not leave them outside. He claimed that he was worried they might get stolen but in reality he just didn’t want to bring the goods in after school by himself,” she said, adding, “He could have at least notified us.”

Muna said that the men continued to bring the goods into the school even after the school staff had asked them to leave. “We contacted the school guard and complained,” she said.

The guard told the women that he was unable to bring the items in by himself and that was why he let the cleaners in. “We wrote a complaint letter to the Education Ministry and until now we did not receive any response,” she said.

Another school administrator said her school gets inundated with beggars asking for money and that the school guards fail to stop them from coming in. “At one point, a woman beggar entered the school after being allowed in by the school guard. She then refused to leave until she had asked the school principal for money,” she said preferring to remain anonymous.

“We begged her to leave and even collected SR100 for her. She insisted on meeting the principal and barged into her office. The principal was having an important meeting and became very upset. There is nothing that we can do once they are inside school if the guards at the gate do not stop them,” she said.

At one school in Jeddah, a mentally-ill man entered a girls school looking for his wife. The guard could not stop the man at the gate because he was much stronger than the old guard. “He was going from one class to another searching for his wife. He was threatening to harm students if she did not show up. We managed to enter one of the rooms and lock it from the inside. From there we called the police who arrested the man,” said the school principal, who did not wish to reveal her name.

Girls schools are suffering from a lack of strong security guards that are able to provide safety to hundreds of female students. Administrators at girls schools allege that the Education Ministry only appoints elderly men, who often are incapable of carrying out their duties.

However, school guards feel differently. “Every day we face a lot of problems. Guards cannot solve these problems single-handedly. They need assistants to assist them when doing the job,” said school guard Marzook Al-Shammari.

“It is very difficult to satisfy everybody. We are dealing with many families and many students. An assistant would be a big help, they would be able to help and support us. Before people start accusing us of neglecting our duties, schools should improve our situation. We have been working for years without any improvement in our situation,” he said, adding that security guards work throughout the year without normal vacations.

“We don’t even get offs on Thursdays and Fridays. The biggest problem is that the Ministry of Education is only employing one gate guard per school. We are not paid extra compensation for the trouble that we face,” he said.