ABHA: Saudis have expressed shock and annoyance at recent videos showing women being subjected to harassment. While some believe that harassment is an individual case that hasn’t evolved into a phenomenon, others see that there is a need to draft legislations to fight the problem.

Advocates of having an anti-harassment law base their position on data showing that harassment is on the rise in the Kingdom.

Ninety-two percent of women polled by a recent Saudi study say that the increased harassment has been caused by the lack of a proper punishment.

Twenty-seven percent of women in a local poll said they been subjected to verbal harassment; 26 percent said that harnessers threw their phone numbers at them; 24 percent said that they were harassed by looks while 15 percent had experienced physical harassment. Women said the majority (59.5 percent) of harassers are Saudi.

Last year, media outlets criticized the delay in passing an anti-harassment law that was drafted by eight Shoura Council members. Opponents slammed the draft law saying it encouraged mixing between men and women which resulted in the Shoura’s delaying discussions on the topic for five months. The proposed law would punish harassers with sentences of up to one year in prison and fines of SR100,000. The law states that “any uncalled for words, act, position or signal that suggests the perpetrators desire to sexually deal with, provoke or humiliate the other party is considered harassment.”

Lawyer and legal counselor Dr. Hadi Al-Yami said that all crimes have punishments. He explained that harassment crimes can lead to court sentences depending on the judge’s assessment of the situation in each case.

He explained that harassment is a general term and needs to be specified in court cases, such as relatives’ harassment or harassment happening in public or in workplaces.

“In some cases, harassment happens in front of everybody or it may happen in secret,” Al-Yami said stressing that each case is individual and calls for various punishments. Based on these details, Al-Yami highlighted the need for a general law that has a clear definition of harassment and indicates punishments for different types of harassment.