Ashwaq Al-Tuwairqi Okaz/Saudi Gazette MAKKAH – Makkah Social Protection Center has rejected a request filed by female lawyer Amoona Tawakul in which she asked the Center to step in and save a Saudi woman in her 40s from her three brothers who have forced her to stay home and not get married. They had even tied her hands in order to prevent her from leaving the house. The Center told the lawyer that it cannot do anything about the case because it is not responsible for such cases. It only receives the cases referred by police stations and prisons. The woman has been mistreated by her brothers ever since she filed a divorce case against her drug addict husband more than 14 years ago, Tawakul said. She was forced by her brothers to get married to a divorced man who had three children from a previous marriage. After marriage, she moved with her husband to the Eastern Province and was surprised when she discovered that his apartment did not have furniture except some mattresses and pillows. She sold her jewelry and bought furniture for the apartment. Few days into the marriage, she discovered the bitter truth about her husband. He was a drug addict and an abusive man. Not a day went by without him beating her up or insulting her. Her brothers never asked her how she was doing. Her father had died a long time ago while her mother was very sick and could not do anything to help her daughter. After getting sick and tired of her husband's abuse, she filed a divorce case against him at the court. Her brothers considered her action a big stigma to the family and declared that she should be punished for it. After her divorce, they took her back home and locked her up, not allowing her to go outside except to the hospital or when she wanted to visit her brothers. They also deprived her of the right to get married again and took away her ATM card and ID card so that she does not receive social aid. They kept a close eye on her to prevent her from going to the police or Makkah Social Protection Center. Every time she demanded that they give her rights and allow her to get married again, they would beat her up. She had threatened that she would commit suicide or run away from home. The lawyer received a call from the woman a few months ago asking for help. She requested Tawakul to take her matter to higher authorities and free her from the ‘prison' she has been put in for 14 years. Tawakul said the woman's elder brother convinced her father to make her drop out of school when she was a third grader and stay home in order to help their mother and raise their brothers. Tawakul has called upon authorities concerned to step in and help the poor woman. A source at the Center said they cannot accept cases of physical abuse directly and that such cases have to be referred to them first by the police or any other social institution. The Center's official cannot free the girl from her prison at home without the intervention of security forces, the source added. Sultan Al-Harthy, a legal consultant, advised the woman to find a way to approach the police and report her case to them.
