Al-Zahrani made the comments at the First Saudi Domestic Violence Awareness Forum, which was headed by Dr. Hanan Sultan, a consultant in obstetrics and gynecology, and held at the King Fahd Academy in London. The event, which ended on Sunday, ran with the theme, “To protect them, not to lose them.”
“When a family faces such abuse cases, it becomes really hard trying to get back their children once the authorities here interfere. Being Muslim and Arabic makes it too hard to find a similar atmosphere for these victim children and we really hope families will register because such cases are occurring,” said Al-Zahrani.
This problem was discussed due to the increasing numbers of cases where abuse, ranging from emotional abuse to verbal and physical abuse, is being reported to the Saudi Arabian Embassy here, and at the London Central Mosque.
According to Tawfeeq Al-Inizi, deputy president at the SSCSUKI, being abroad is not easy and the pressure some students here face trying to adapt to the new lifestyle away from home could be a contributing factor in such cases of abuse. “Hence comes the urge to hold such an event to decrease the number of these cases and spread awareness,” he said.
Additionally, before the end of this year Al-Inizi said that with the help of dedicated volunteers there will be at lest five regional committees set up to help Saudi families in the care of social services across the UK.
A lot of those who commit violence or abuse their family or others, “Are sick even if they do not admit it and need help,” said Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf Al-Saud, the Saudi ambassador to the United Kingdom and Ireland.
To help them, the prince added, the event focused on gathering people from different specialties in order to cover all of the areas required to spread awareness and educate Saudi families in the UK. “It does not only affect the person, but it breaks the whole family and such a problem must be treated at its roots,” he said.
Dr. Ibrahim Hamami, a family physician, supported this view and said that society continues to pressurize people and that even when a person is educated and holds a PhD, for example, when it comes to honor killing, “A man could easily pull a trigger or kill for that, according to the cases we have seen.”
Hamami then pointed out that the incidents reported include cases of abuse against men, which is on the rise in many societies, including in Islamic and Arabic nations. “This is new and started to appear specially in societies where women have begun to get their rights and seek equality. In Egypt, for example, 30 percent of women beat their husbands,” he said, “However, it is very hard to measure these statistics because men are too proud to say that their wives beat them unlike women … men believe it weakens their manhood to admit it.”
Additionally, Consultant Psychiatrist at Health Care and Consultation Professor Mohammed Abdul-Mawgoud said in his speech that in many cases the victim often becomes abusive themselves if not treated immediately.
Abdul-Mawgoud who is based in London but has spent over nine years in Saudi Arabia also said that women are more likely to become victims of physical abuse with a probability of 9 in 30, while men have a probability of only 3 in 20.
“The rising phenomena of hiring maids and drivers among Saudi families also leads to many abuse cases,” said Abdul-Mawgoud. He also mentioned several factors which provoke many to physically abuse their family members or others, such as being single. He also spoke about women who have had an illegal intimate relationship, and then undergo hymen repair surgery.
He also mentioned the spiritual side effects of when a woman marries a man, and over time while living abroad he becomes atheist. “She find herself in a dilemma trying to meet her husband’s physical needs forcefully, and she knows it’s not right to be living with him anymore and does not know what to do,” he said.
Another Family Physician, Dr. Samia Al-Habib, went on to say that, regardless of the rules and regulations formed in advanced countries to stop abuse cases, “people haven’t changed.”
She said from 1995 to 2006, for example, USA statistics on these cases is almost the same. She encouraged increasing the number of studies and research on this issue in order to monitor the causes of abuse, as well as educating communities.
According to Abdullah Al-Maghlouth, a columnist at Al-Watan newspaper, in 2009, Saudi Arabia had only 140 studies, of which most are done abroad by overseas students, while the UK, for example, had 7,325 studies.
