Our society is full of sad stories. What happened to Ghosoon, Samirah and Rahaf are perfect examples. If their cases had been reported on time to authorities, they would still be alive. Instead, their names have been added to a sorry list of domestic violence victims.
Statistics in the country aren’t available perhaps because authorities are ashamed of this problem, or, more likely, because they’re afraid that collecting information on domestic violence damages the picture of a perfect society. By not collecting factual information on domestic violence, we can go on our merry way believing that these incidents are rare.
Let’s set aside words and speak about numbers. In 2000 the Interior Ministry reported that there were 718 cases of runaway girls. Can you imagine that 718 girls ran away from their families in that year alone? This was six years ago. Assuming the unreported cases far outnumber the reported ones, why hasn’t anyone looked into the root causes of the problem illustrated by this information?
Newspapers today seem to be reporting more incidents of domestic violence than in the past. Are parents turning into monsters? Why now is the media reporting these things more so than in the past? Are we becoming more transparent?
There are too many stories these days of innocent children facing injustice from both the system that supposedly serves to protect them and the people that abused or murdered them. The laws are clearly insufficient or defective when it comes to dealing with domestic violence. The laws ignore the victims, primarily mothers and children. The laws favor the father, who is often the abettor to the crimes if not the sole perpetrator.
Considering this, it is no surprise that girls are running away or committing suicide. All too often there is too much pressure, which eventually leads to an explosion.
