MAKKAH — The Social Protection Committee (SPC) in Makkah has received 49 cases of domestic violence last month. SPC Chairman Mohsen Al-Qahtani said the cases included physical and verbal abuse by fathers, husbands, brothers and other male members of the family. He said the committee resolved the majority of these cases through counseling but referred some of them to the Bureau of Investigation and Public Prosecution (BIP) because of criminal intent to commit bodily harm. “Some cases were referred to the general court because a Shariah ruling was required,” he added. The SPC meets every Monday to deal with all cases reaching it before they are forwarded to the legal bodies. Al-Qahtani said the committee consists of representatives from the department of health affairs, the BIP, the Department of Education, the Makkah police, the drug combat department and the general court. A newspaper cited a number of examples of domestic violence in different regions. It said last month a mother in Jazan burned her child and chopped off one of his fingers; a man in the same city stabbed his wife with a knife and burned her to death; and a baby girl in Al-Khobar was beaten up and burned by her stepfather. In Dammam, a man badly beat up his wife, while in Jeddah a father hit his toddler child so severely that it led to permanent disability. — SG
