Isn’t it about time for a draft law to protect children from abuse?

By Prof. Fawziah Al Bakr

The story of the little girl Lama that was sexually abused and murdered by her father, who is now in prison awaiting trial, and other recurrent stories like it, show the power of men in this society and their capability of harming weaker parties unable to defend themselves due to lack of awareness, mechanisms and laws that protect children and women from all kinds of harassment and abuse.

Societies are based on families caring for their children. A father and mother’s immediate responsibility in every family is to care for and nurture their children, but that is not what occurs in all cases. In Saudi Arabia, there is a need to form laws that protect weaker entities within the institution of the family. The absence of such laws produce cases like Lama, who die waiting for justice, and this absence of legislation will keep producing others like Lama we may or may not know about.

In the past, it was acceptable and feasible to address similar cases within the context of the family and neighborhood due to the small population of Saudi at that time and the simplicity of the social system. This is no longer possible in this day and age. The population of Saudi has grown enormously and every family within this modern lifestyle system has practically barricaded themselves inside their cement homes, isolated from others around them. Many negative lifestyle options have now become accessible such as drug use and alcohol while the legal system has not caught up by implementing legislation, protocol and social services to prevent and protect against abuse and neglect.

Our modern times have seen a shift in how we define and view terms like childhood, abuse, neglect and other terms relating to rights in modern social institutions. Our generation was subjected to many forms of verbal and (maybe physical) abuse from teachers, parents, relatives and neighbors according to the prevailing intellectual structure of the society; as the Arabic proverb goes the meat is for the teacher and the bones for the parents. If at that time society did not criminalize many forms of abuse, today there is no room for such practices, even if it is for noble goals. No one can hit a child under the pretext of disciplining or slap a teenager under the pretext of returning him or her to their senses, let alone deliver deliberate harm or neglect or sexual abuse as poor Lama faced that left her body lying in the morgue for four months!!

It is time to wake up. Such practices must be criminalized because it is a crime in our modern time’s definition. Many of the frighteningly light court rulings on cases of domestic abuse do not correspond to the severity of the crime. Civil and Shariah laws should be updated to catch up with Saudi society’s intellectual shift in the understanding of rights and duties. All kinds of abusive behavior against children and women should be clearly identified by law makers and Sharia laws and codified.

There is an immediate need to call for a draft law that clearly defines all forms of abuse including verbal, psychological, physical, and sexual abuse and other forms of sexual harassment and abuse that women and other minorities in society face.

We have grown weary of hearing about the Lamas of our society. Their stories, reverberated by the newspapers and satellite channels, nationally and internationally, have created an awareness among society regarding the lack of a basic law for the protection against abuse. It is high time for legislation to cover this deficiency. Saudi Arabia has signed many international treaties that ensure basic human rights for all and rejects any kind of discrimination. Islamic laws also emphasize the protection of rights for all. Our shared religion and these treaties could help us to initiate laws against neglect and abuse that many have long waited for.

Prof. Fawziah Al Bakr has had a long history in human rights activism. She is a professor of education at King Saud University. She is also a writer who spent three months in prison for her columns. You can read a translation of her article on gender apartheid here and you can follow her on Twitter here.

BREAKING NEWS BAHRAIN: "We want our children to have their mothers back"

One woman has died and up to 30 are still detained in undisclosed locations in Bahrain, during a violent government crackdown on protesters.

Women are arrested and tortured by government forces in order to deter their relatives from continuing to protest, said Lebanese freelance journalist Zeinab Al-Saffar in an interview with SAVE.

"The message the government forces are sending is: If you don’t calm down, we will attack your women," said Al-Saffar, who has close ties with citizens in Bahrain. Bahiya Abd Rassoul AL-Aradi, a woman in her thirties from Al-Manama, died on March 21 due to a bullet wound to the neck.Three of the 20 missing women are believed to be pregnant, and many more are mothers. "We want these children to have their mothers back," said Al-Saffar.

In total, over 600 people have disappeared during the unrest. The youngest is Ali Ahmad Abass Yehia Thamer, who is under 12-years old. Several have died during their imprisonment, including the prominent businessman and member of opposition party Wefaq, Kareem Fakhrawi. The authorities refuse to release the bodies, blaming the deaths on chronic diseases, such as diabetes or heart problems, according to Al-Saffar. Police have also been entering the Al-Salimiya Hospital to arrest wounded protesters and hospital staff. Other women have been abducted at check-points or at their homes late at night.

In many cases, whole families are held in captivity. Zainab Alkhawaja, the daughter of prominent activist Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, is on hunger strike to protest the arrest of her father, husband, brother-in-law and uncle. She announced her protest action through her blog, addressing herself to US President Barack Obama, as she said that her own government has "proven that they do not care about our rights, or our lives."

Protests began on February 14, inspired by the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. For a month, demonstrators peacefully demanded reform, but did not aim to oust the current regime. The protests, which often centred on Pearl Square and its iconic pearl monument, escalated until Bahrain saw its biggest demonstrations ever, with an estimated 200,000 people taking to the streets - about a fifth of the national population.

On March 14, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa declared a 3-month state of emergency and cracked down on the protesters, choosing violence over dialogue. Aided by neighbouring countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, he invited foreign troops into Bahrain in an attempt to quell opposition to his regime. The monument in Pearl Square has been demolished by the government, as it has come to represent the spirit of the protest movement.

The protesters have now changed their demands, aiming to topple the regime and achieve wide-ranging constitutional changes.

Despite the severity of the crisis in Bahrain, few reports have surfaced in the international media. The government in Bahrain is enforcing a media blackout, and Bahrain is also a close ally of the United States, hosting a large US naval base. US politicians such as Hilary Clinton have expressed tempered criticism of the government’s behavior.

Women in Bahrain have been taking an active part in anti-government demonstrations. The population of Bahrain is only 800,000, and since 2002, various reforms have introduced improved political and social rights for women. They are economically active, and Al-Saffar expects that in the event of a new regime, women’s voices will be louder in the reform process than they have been in countries like Egypt.

Amnesty International is organizing a petition calling on King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa to conduct full inquiries into the deaths of protesters, guarantee the right to peaceful protest and freedom of association, and release all opposition activists immediately. Read more about this action here.