JEDDAH, 23 January 2008 — The Indian widow of a Saudi businessman in Al-Kharj, who died four months ago, is struggling to gain her and her children’s share of inheritance after her husband failed to include her and their three children into the family card.

To add to her pain, the woman’s co-wife, who mothered eight of the man’s children, tells her, “You are under our feet because you are not Saudi.”

The man, who already had one wife, married the woman, called Shahina, through a matchmaker in India 15 years ago when she was 18. Shahina came to live in the Kingdom a year later and had three sons, aged 14, 13 and 12, and a nine-year-old daughter.

After her husband’s death, Shahina has been unable to claim inheritance for herself and her children because her name had not been included in the family’s ID card.

“My husband owned five shops, which all came under the supervision of his elder son from his first wife after he died,” said Shahina. “I asked him to give me one of the shops to use the income to support my children, but he refused saying he wouldn’t give me anything,” she added.

Now, Shahina’s children are left to go to school on foot. “My elder brother (from the first wife) just bought a brand new car and we’re left to walk to school. We don’t have money. My mother cries all the time because she is sad and no one is treating us well,” said Shahina’s eldest son, Waleed.

When Shahina arrived in the Kingdom in 1992, she was prevented from meeting the rest of her in-laws and from talking to them on the phone. “For the past 15 years I have never been out of the house. I have been living within the four walls of the house,” she said.

After her husband’s death, Shahina has faced a host of difficulties from her husband’s children from his first marriage and faces problems feeding her children and providing them with medical treatment.

On Oct. 23 last year, Shahina, with the help of her niece and her husband, sent a letter to Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah and Riyadh Gov. Prince Salman. The mother of four then received a telephone call from Al-Kharj police station, asking her to go there. Shahina was handed a sealed file and sent to another police station where the file was taken. She was then handed a summons document to give to her late husband’s eldest son.

The son took the paper without saying anything. Shahina’s niece, Rubina, said, “My husband told him we sent a letter to the king regarding my aunt’s rights.”

She added that the son told her husband, “Go anywhere you want, I’m not afraid.”

Since, the son failed to come to the police station, a policeman told Shahina that her file would be sent to court and advised her to go to court herself. However, when she arrived there, a presiding judge asked her to come after the Haj vacation and bring a lawyer. Shahina has now been left in a predicament, as she is unable to afford the services of a lawyer to fight her case.

Meanwhile, after hearing that she had approached the authorities, Shahina’s brother-in-law visited her and scolded her. He further locked the door of her house and told the family that they were unable to leave without the prior permission of the son.

Following her brother-in-law’s orders, Shahina receives SR100 every week, which is sometimes delayed by up to five days. Her brother-in-law also promised to help her and begin the process of her receiving Saudi nationality. “He took copies of her passport and iqama and we are still waiting, but there is still no response yet,” said Rubina.

Shahina, who is living in the Kingdom on an expired iqama, is now waiting for two things — Saudi nationality and to have her and her children’s name written in her husband’s family card. “Having the Saudi nationality would help me stand on my feet and receive my late husband’s pension. I will not be humiliated by my in-laws anymore,” she said.