Despite efforts by human rights organizations and family safety awareness campaigns, domestic abuse cases in the Kingdom continue. Noura, a primary school student, is one such victim suffering physical abuse at the hands of her mother. She sustained severe injuries and bleeding after being hit by chains. According to a local report, Noura was tortured by her mother because she was born on the same day Baghdad fell to US forces in 2003. Salem Al-Sabhan, general director for social services at the Ministry of Social Affairs, said the mother is originally an Iraqi and she lost her parents in the Iraq war. She therefore punishes her child, Noura, for being born that year. Noura's father is crippled, he added. Mukhlif Al-Shammary, a human rights activist and member of the National Family Safety Program, complained that the police had done nothing about the case despite his sending an official complaint to the police and the Bureau of Investigation and Prosecution in Hail. “Although it is a criminal case, the BIP transferred it to the Ministry of Social Affairs. The BIP now say they formed a committee last Saturday to look into the matter as soon as possible,” Al-Shammary said. He also revealed that Noura remains with her mother and has been subject to abuse for the last seven years. “The ministries of Education and Social Affairs are both aware of Noura's case but no one has intervened to save the child,” he lamented. According to Al-Shammary, Noura had to be taken to the hospital on three separate incidents. “One time, a teacher in her school found her badly bruised and bleeding in the street and when she reported the incident, the authorities called her mother to take her back home,” he said. The story is in line with the findings of the National Society for Human Rights, which criticized in its report the bureaucracy and insufficiency of governmental bodies while dealing with human rights cases. Al-Shammary said these reports serve as only ink on paper while children are being tortured at homes and nothing is done to save them. “But it's hard to give up on these cases,” he said.
