MADINAH, 1 July 2007 — Having received a complaint about a delinquent 15-year-old boy behaving improperly in a shopping mall, members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice dealt with the root of the problem by uniting the youngster with his family and arranging for his drug-addict father to seek help.
On a routine inspection of Madinah’s shopping areas, the attention of commission members was drawn to the youngster working in a mall. Shattering stereotypical negative views of the government-run organization, the youngster was taken to a local commission center to be given moral advice, where further analysis of his case led commission members to identify that the youngster came from a broken family, which was the cause of his behavioral problems.
Commission members learned that the 15-year-old had been living in Madinah with friends and relatives and that his immediate family lives 300 km away. Members also learned that the boy’s father is a drug addict.
“His father had thrown him out and told him to support himself. He was told to find his own place to live and so ended up coming to Madinah,” said a commission member, adding that on hearing his story, members decided to contact the boy’s father to reunite the family.
“For four days we tried to contact the father but to no avail. On the fifth day, the father answered the phone and the commission members managed to talk to him and convince him to take his son back,” said the commission member, adding that following some gentle persuasion over the telephone, the father decided that he needed help to kick his drug addict in.
“The father promised to leave drugs and take his son back. We arranged for commission members in his town to take the father to a drug rehabilitation clinic to get help,” said the commission member, adding that members now regularly visit the family to ensure things are going smoothly and to keep the father’s spirits high in quitting drugs.
“The dad’s going for regular appointments and the situation at home is pretty normal now. This isn’t just one case, we deal with lots of cases in this way,” said the commission member.
Khalaf Al-Onaizi, head of the Uhud branch of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, said the case highlights some of the positive work that the commission carries out.
He added that the commission gives due consideration to the domestic situation of people brought to its attention and works to solve issues in an amicable fashion.
“Drugs are harmful to people’s lives as has been shown in this heartrending incident. Parents should take care of their children and abstain from drugs, which destroy families,” he said.
