An ongoing story about the serial Jeddah rapist has sparked a debate about the importance of reporting such attacks instead of covering them up.
Police believe the rapist was encouraged to continue his horrific attacks because some incidents were not reported.
It is clear his young victims will be left with mental scars that will not be healed anytime soon. They will need to undergo psychological treatment.
The victims’ families will also need to be counseled, especially in a conservative society where the chasteness of potential brides is considered extremely important before they get married.
The mother of a rape victim told Arab News on the condition of anonymity of the pain she went through when her daughter was raped.
"I was with my kids shopping in a major store in Jeddah. I left my children in the children’s playground at the center. I discovered later that my eight-year-old daughter had gone missing,” she said.
“I knew my daughter had been kidnapped because there was no sign of her inside the shopping center," the mother said in tears.
"I eventually found my daughter outside the mall in a very bad condition. She was brutally raped and had lost a lot of blood. She was in a terrible mental condition and in total shock.”
She said the father refused to report the incident to police because he did not want people to talk about his daughter and was ashamed of what had happened. Eventually, the family moved to another neighborhood.
The mother said her daughter suffered a lot and became withdrawn, adding that she was not sleeping properly, refused to play with children and was crying all the time. Her father started to hate her and treat her badly, sometimes wishing that she was dead, she added.
Hanadi, nine, is another victim of rape and her family refused to report the case to police.
An overstayer lured her daughter to an abandoned house when she was on her way home from school. With the help of another man, he brutally raped the girl.
"My daughter managed to crawl for 400 meters before she reached home. She was bleeding and in shock,” said her mother.
“Her father refused to report the case to police to avoid shame and scandal. In his opinion, reporting the attack would damage the family reputation. We moved to another town and her father always sees Hanadi as a girl with no future."
Sarah, one of the Jeddah rapist’s victims, was found six months ago in an abandoned area after she was attacked. She suffered from psychological problems because of what happened to her. Her family refused to report the case but later relented when many others came forward to report similar attacks.
"We are from a known family and reporting such an incident might have damaged our reputation. My husband is working in a prominent position. We had the best opportunity to come forward when we found many other victims also reporting they had been attacked," said Sarah’s mother.
Dr. Marwa Abdulal, a psychiatrist at a Jeddah hospital, said such attacks on children are considered extremely heinous crimes that destroy the lives of victims and their families.
The children will live in fear and they will suffer from psychological problems for a long time, she said, adding that victims may become criminals themselves in the future.
