Jeddah resident Umm Muhammad told Arab News she was shopping in a mall recently when she saw two housemaids forcibly taking two children to a toilet area, apparently to beat them without drawing public attention. The children were crying out in severe pain.

“I was watching the whole incident and hoping their parents would notice, but nothing happened,” she said.

Another woman said she once saw a small child crying after a maid started beating him violently in a shopping mall.

“I spoke to the maid and managed to get the mobile phone from her to call the child’s mother. The mother soon appeared before us and took the child away from the maid and thanked me for calling her,” she said, adding that the woman later called to tell her that she never left the child with the maid anymore.

A security supervisor at a mall, who did not want to be identified, told Arab News that beating and punishing children was a common sight. “Commercial establishments have no system to stop such cruel treatment to children even as other shoppers look on,” he said.

Children are regularly abused even though the government has signed a number of international agreements to protect human rights, including those of minors. However, it remains a fact that there is no clear law in the country to prevent child abuse in public.

The absence of a strategy to stop child abuse or a code of conduct for parents worsens the situation. However, the Ministry of Social Affairs has set up a general administration for social protection, the duties of which include sheltering abused children. The administration has a call center with the telephone number 1919 to receive calls on abuse cases.

“The center received 780 calls on family abuse in 2009, and cases involving children came a close second to those involving women,” a statement from the administration said.

Any act or inaction that endangers the life or physical or mental health of a child is defined as child abuse. It includes murder, attempt to murder, harming, negligence and sexual harassment of children. It also includes deliberate, direct or indirect acts.

Director of counseling at the Department of Education in Jeddah Salim bin Abdullah Al-Tuwairaqi, who is also a member of the Saudi Society for Child Care, said children should not be left in situations that would endanger them or make them potential targets for child molesters.

Stressing the importance of parents looking after children properly and protecting them from potential dangers, Al-Tuwairaqi said: “Many parents neglect their responsibilities, believing they end with ensuring the primary needs of children such as food, drink and clothes.”

The official warned that leaving a child in the care of a driver or maid at commercial centers or amusement parks may lead to the child going missing, having an accident or being abducted.

“A family is held fully responsible for what happens to their children as a result of negligence,” he said.

He stressed the need for training children from nursery stage on how to respond to dangers including dealing with strangers.

An opinion poll on family and child abuse conducted by the National Program for Family Safety found that 79 percent of the participants believed that abuse and negligence of children is an issue in Saudi society.

Sixty-one percent believed that official figures on child abuse did not reflect the actual number of incidents that take place and 80 percent believed that Saudis badly needed specific laws to protect children from negligence and abuse. Ninety-three percent agreed that child abusers deserved severe punishments.

The study also revealed that only 3 percent of official workers who handled child abuse cases had received special training to deal with such victims.

The study recommended the drawing up of urgent regulations to protect children from abuse in the Kingdom.