THE reason behind the establishment of protection homes or shelters by the Ministry of Labor and Social Services was to protect battered women from their abusers and provide legal and social aid to them. But that task has been flipped in the presence of some male and female employees who punish and pressure battered women so they are no longer victims of criminal behavior of one of their relatives, but have become criminals worthy of confinement in buildings similar to prisons, where rules are applied that are no less stringent than the standards applied in the correctional and detention facilities. Far from the high walls of protection shelters, we find a strict attitude toward battered women in communicating with the outside world, as if they are in confinement. It is as if the goal is to put pressure on the battered to surrender and return and live with her abuser, bearing physical and emotional abuse because this is one of the goals of some of those responsible for the shelters, although this is not their role. Their actual role is limited to providing full humanitarian care to victims of abuse and trigger legal action against the perpetrators of violence with competent judicial authorities in accordance with the system of protection from abuse. The duty of the ministry toward battered women is to apply for judicial claims against the perpetrators through both civilian courts, the disarmament of their guardianship, and through penal courts that criminalize violence. These are not just legal texts to adorn the ministry's website and hang on the walls of its luxurious offices. When abused girls escape to the shelter, they are seeking refuge and are in need of safety by a government committed to protect honor and property of all of them. The ministry, which is bound by the state to protect women from violence, cannot take the perpetrator's side against the victim. We must send a clear message to all criminals who violate the sanctity of a woman's body that when the victim contacts the protection hotline, a legal and judicial process will start against the abuser that will place him in a prison cell in the Kingdom. I do not think anything like that will happen in the presence of leaders in social protection who are unaware of the function and purpose of shelters.
