RIYADH, 14 December 2007 — The incident that sparked the Qatif Girl rape trial began when an 18-year-old girl reportedly met an ex-boyfriend in front of a mall in 2006 to retrieve a photograph of herself.
“Months later I asked him to give it back since I got engaged to be married,” said the girl in an interview with Associated Press reporter Farida Deif.
Nothing is known about the actual content of this picture. According to the girl, she gave the picture to the guy. But what is known is that women in Saudi Arabia tend to be averse to having their pictures taken by anyone except family members and close, trusted friends. Fear of public shame or family backlashes can make women in the Kingdom very camera shy; and, according to girls interviewed recently in Al-Riyadh newspaper, with good reason. In the age of the Internet and Bluetooth, where pictures can be disseminated quickly and be used for blackmail, this aversion may be getting stronger.
“The person who makes these kinds of threats knows in advance how society looks down at the girl in these cases,” said Hala, a Riyadh high school student. “People judge the girl as prey who falls in the trap of a flirtatious guy. This is how our society judges men in these situations.”
As such, Hala says a guy who has a girl’s picture can threaten to send it to family members and, instead of the guy getting in trouble for blackmail, the girl gets in trouble for letting herself get into such a situation. In many cases this threat to get the girls’ family involved is strong enough to encourage the girl to submit to the guy’s demands.
Umm Faisal, a 60-something grandmother, was the one who described boys as “flirtatious”, and says that when such situations arise it is better for the family to deal with the situation in private rather than making a public scene.
“The emotional nature of the woman makes her weak and an easy prey for a flirtatious guy,” said Umm Faisal. “Young girls are too naive to get over guys’ tricks. So if one of our girls sinned and involved herself in such a shameful relationship, and wants to repent, we have to stand beside her and help her to repent according to God’s will. We are also responsible for the reputation of our girls. So I see that solving the problem confidentially is better than making a scandal for the girl; and for her family too.”
Amal Al-Fayez, another Riyadh high school student, said that a lot of girls are being exposed to extortion from guys of previous relationships. She also said that a lot of these men are older, in their 30s, married with children, who think they can exploit a young woman’s fear with impunity.
Umm Faisal said that the solution to preventing these situations is to make it clear to girls that they won’t be exposed, as she described it, “to cruel revenge” from her own family members. If the girl knows the family is by her side in situations of extortion, she is less likely to submit to the demands imposed on her by a man with prurient interests.
Umm Meshal Al-Ferah, another granny in her 60s, agrees with Umm Faisal. “I wonder about those families who punish their girls and let the guys off,” she said.
Afaf Abdul Rahman, a counselor in a Riyadh high school, said that in her observations it has been the mother, not the father, who is the “cruelest” in these situations.
“Some girls ask us to inform their fathers, not mothers,” she said. “The mother is the one who escalates the issue and provokes the father to take a crueler action toward the girl.”
Afaf says that the family reaction toward incidences such as these leads school counselors to inform police and try to resolve the situation without getting the family involved. But the problem there, she adds, is that police aren’t as concerned with the delicate nature of the situation.
“Police only ask for the physical evidence,” she said. “They don’t consider the psychological hurt that the girls would suffer if the case is exposed.”
Moneera Al-Qahtani, another counselor, takes the opposite view in dealing with cases such as these.
“The girl must be severely punished by her family in order not to repeat her mistake again,” she said. “If the girl recognizes that she had committed a fatal mistake, she should accept her punishment.”
Mingling of unrelated boys and girls is illegal in Saudi Arabia, albeit it is usually treated as a light offense. Different parts of the Kingdom enforce this law differently. In some places it is common to see young men and women, often in groups, hanging out in family sections of restaurants. In other parts of the Kingdom, this would be highly scrutinized. (Whether “mingling” is forbidden in Islam or not is debatable, but what is indeed forbidden is “khulwa”, or “isolation”: An unrelated man and woman isolating themselves from others behind closed doors.)
“Illegal relationships between boys and girls are rare in our society, because we don’t have mingled communities,” said Dr. Shorouk Abdul Aziz, a sociologist. “The Saudi girl is always accompanied by her family and never left alone. One of the ways boys can contact girls is through the Internet. Sometimes they do this to kill time. They have a lot of spare time and don’t know what to do with it. So parents have to watch over their boys and girls carefully and try to engage them in useful activities.”
She echoed what Umm Faisal, the grandmother, said. “If the girl considers her mother her friend she won’t hide anything from her,” she said. “The family should schedule an hour a day for group discussion and getting closer to each other.”