JEDDAH, 28 April — Saudi women have been entering the work force over the past few years, and now frequently work alongside their Saudi male colleagues — usually in separate departments, according to local norms and principles.
However, despite officially being segregated, an investigation by Arab News has revealed that in practice large numbers of Saudi women are suffering sexual harassment — and the culprits are usually their male Saudi colleagues.
“No research has been undertaken on this topic, but to judge from my experience we can say that there are scores of women in the Kingdom suffering harassment on a daily basis,” said Sawsan Hennawi, a social counselor and adviser.
Women’s modesty is held in such high regard here that even an unwelcome aside about appearance or a dirty joke can constitute harassment.
Physical assaults are still uncommon, and there are severe punishments for violators.
“Sometimes I cannot even recognize if it’s harassment. I ask myself again and again before I pass judgment on my boss’ remarks,” said Siham, 25, a Saudi-Lebanese woman working for a private company.
She added that when she was previously employed at a hospital, many of her friends resigned because of the constant harassment they received.
“The brave women who come forward to report sexual harassment are only the tip of the iceberg,” she contends.
Marwa, 27, an Egyptian physician recently married to a Saudi man, applied for a job in a polyclinic center. The person in charge of admission was just too nice to be true.
“He was always asking if I wanted water or coffee, if I wanted to sit down, if I could be made more comfortable... All the time he had this suggestive grin on his face, and was looking at me up and down. He never even glanced a look at my CV, but at the end of the ‘interview’ he actually offered me the job!” she recalled.
Harassment is also a problem in the Kingdom’s universities.
Kinda, 28, who works with her Saudi husband for a private institute for developing special skills, said staff in the employee administration department used to get telephone numbers from the female applicants’ files and start calling them to conduct phony interviews.
An official at the welfare office of an Asian consulate in Jeddah said that 20 runaway maids had taken refuge in the consulate. Most of them, said the official, ran away from their employers because of sexual harassment. They are now awaiting procedures to get started at the labor office, or swift deportation.
The streets are full of women being harassed by men. Cars full of young men pursuing taxis carrying women has become such a trend in the big cities that the authorities have resorted to mass public floggings in an attempt to put an end to the phenomenon.
Not that it is having much effect.
Umm Salem, 38, used to walk along the Pregnancy Wall (a long square pavement in the Al-Faysaleyah district of Jeddah where pregnant women walk) when she was pregnant.
On one of her walks, she was engaged by someone whose verbal flirtation upset her so much that it resulted in her deciding to quit walking altogether.
“I don’t know what made him flirt with a pregnant woman covered from head to toe in an abaya,” she reflected. “Is even a woman eighth months pregnant not safe?”
Dr. Sumaya, an educationalist at the Humanities Faculty at King Abdul Aziz University, told Arab News: “We badly need to re-educate our society on what is acceptable behavior, according to Islamic principles, both in the workplace and in the street. Some men in our society still regard women as helpless or second class citizens. This means that women are having to be doubly assertive by battling against unwelcome behavior while at the same time trying to prove their competence.”
