This is a quite expressive cartoon by a longstanding cartoonist, Al Rabea, from yesterday’s edition of Al Riyadh newspaper. It depicts a recurring and widespread situation in Saudi Arabia. In it a woman is backed against the wall in a helpless and hopeless fetal position and a man is pointing his camera equipped cell phone at her. The man has his understanding and polite face mask pulled off to reveal the meanness and devil ears beneath. Around the couple are scattered Bluetooths. The story behind this drawing is that many men take advantage of the oppressive nature of this society by befriending and pursuing vulnerable Saudi women until they let down their guard and send photos of themselves to these men. These men then use the photos to blackmail the women, mostly for sex but also for money and sometimes just for the fun of it.
In many cases the photos are usually quite innocent and if seen anywhere else in the world, it would not mean much. But here the possession of a photo of a Saudi woman with only her regular clothes on and without an abaya or hijab is scandalous and could cause a lot of trouble for the woman. Husbands divorce their wives solely on that basis. Even worse, a woman’s children could be taken away because she would be considered an unfit mother and a bad influence on her daughters.
Two extremely high profile cases that happened a decade ago, just when digital photography started going mainstream here caused the government to issue laws against men who use these photos. The first case was of an average single Saudi girl who during a trip to Makkah visited a young man’s apartment after a phone relationship. The guy took photos, some of which were compromising and explicit. Later in the relationship he got mad at the girl for one reason or another and posted the photos with a map to her family’s home in Riyadh and her full name. The aftermath was tragic. The girl was taken to a remote part of the desert and burned to death by her own brothers. The other case was that a young man who belongs to a high status family got mad at his teenage girlfriend and asked his slave* to rape her while he filmed it on his cell phone. This particular Bluetooth really got around and only Saudis living under rocks haven’t seen it. The girl was still in her school uniform and begging the guy to call the slave off. These two cases got so much attention that they pushed the government to act. Now a man who is caught blackmailing or passing out photos of a Saudi woman can be prosecuted and punished. On the other hand, this will also need the woman or at least her family to come forward and press charges so it doesn’t work that well if the woman comes from an extremely conservative family. Note that these cases are handled with the utmost sensitivity on the part of the government and the name of the woman is kept secret throughout the process. But if the girl cannot confide in her family because they might literally kill her or at least inflict serious physical and emotional harm, how is she supposed to be able to confide in the authorities? I have heard of cases where more mature women skipped family support and went directly to the authorities via the vice patrol (muttawas). Surprisingly, the muttawas are very forgiving. As long as at the end of the day they have someone to prosecute, they will willingly overlook the woman’s original discrepancy that got her into trouble in the first place.
The comments that this cartoon got on the newspaper’s website were about 140 in less than 24 hours. I skimmed through them and a substantial number of them blame the women. They write that if women observed the correct hijab and cover then they would not have gotten into trouble. They go as far as to write that women are completely to blame because they seduce naïve and innocent men into doing these things. Some simply thanked the cartoonist for airing the topic. Many used terms like wolves to refer to men and condemned them. A few men wrote about how the sympathize with women and how sad and lonely life can get for women here.
* I use the term slave for lack of a better word. These workers are not legally bound to their employers but voluntarily enslave themselves so in every other sense they are slaves.
8 Comments
October 29, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Excuse me while I pick up my jaw from off the floor! This is just so shocking and heartbreaking to me. There is just so much that is wrong with this situation that I have no idea where to begin. It seems so typical for things like this to be blamed on the woman here. To think that this is the 21st Century and things like this happen in this society … all I can do is shake my head in disbelief. Thank you for posting this.
October 29, 2008 at 10:12 pm
salam alaykum, the question which I ask myself and probably is asked by a lot of people. Why the women knowing the culture in Saudi Arabia and rules of islam expose themselves to such danger – by sending their photos without covers, arranging dates and meeting in private with unrelated men? Please do not understand that I want to say, that the blame is “on the head” of a women only. Men who cross the borders of the Islamic/Saudi code (khulwa) are guilty as well. But one thing is certain: they both do something which is regarded by Islam and Saudi society as a shameful act/crime (I am referring to the state of khulwa). Isn’t it better to be safe then sorry… Are Saudi women naive or looking for love? What makes Saudi women to risk their reputation and good name by such acts?
October 29, 2008 at 10:19 pm
BTW: And loose their lives, as well… Worth to add – honor killings do not have any basis in islam!
October 30, 2008 at 7:50 pm
This is horrible. I feel so bad for these women. As an outsider, I get the impression that Saudi women have few people in their lives they can trust and rely upon to have their backs, no matter what…especially when it comes to the men in their families. I know…if some guy disrespected me like that, my brother would kick HIS ass (sorry).
Umm Latifa Says: Why the women knowing the culture in Saudi Arabia and rules of islam expose themselves to such danger – by sending their photos without covers, arranging dates and meeting in private with unrelated men?
That is a good question. I have no idea; maybe Saudi women aren’t that different than most women who want someone who loves them and respects them, someone they can trust, someone to be their friend as well as their husband. I suspect that Saudi women don’t know what it’s like to have a man as a “friend” (and, yes…it is possible – at least in my world – to have a male friend who likes you as a person but doesn’t want to have sex with you). I would love to talk to Saudi women to ask them directly, why do they take the risk.
Peace!
November 4, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Very interesting & informative text. As I was reading, I was surprised that there would actually be a law prohibiting men from this behavior. I thought for sure it would be a law punishing the women for getting themselves into the mess. Then I went on to read that that was exactly the tone of your 140 comments. Sad commentary.
March 6, 2009 at 10:57 pm
It is sad, however, considering the Saudi social norms… in the West this would be somewhat equivalent to allowing your boyfriend videotape your lovemaking, only to find it later on YouTube… It is something that can not be undone later, so it is important to help young women understand the consequences of this kind of actions.
To those who think that men and women can be friends… Only women can think like that. Women who do not understand what’s going on in man’s mind. They are always dirtier then women think, not because it is their fault, but because biologically they are created in this way. Do to their hormonal, anatomical and other differences – men think 2-3 times more about sex during the day than women, and it is more important to them, and it is harder for them to control themselves because of these things. I also did not believe this until I saw western scientific studies done on this.
July 21, 2009 at 4:37 am
That is what fears have been created to say there is a need for those divisions to exist, preventing normal mixing between men and women in society. Because whoever creates these fears and beliefs that men and women can’t associate unless related or married, is using it just for the purposes of keeping women in a place of being lesser human beings, or property, without equal rights or choice. Or even choice to do anything about changing it.
May 2, 2009 at 11:15 pm
[...] website. A lawsuit that the ladies are highly likely to win because our courts tend to bring the hammer down hard when it comes to making outright false allegations that tarnish family honor. [...]