Many battered young women who build up the courage to leave their abusive environments at home are often ostracized by a society that frowns upon single young women leaving their guardians. The stigma associated with leaving one's family is so great that little attention is paid to the root causes that force abused women to risk their lives and take the huge risk of fleeing home.
A reporter from the Arabic-language Al-Riyadh daily visited the women's wing of Al-Malaz Prison where she met 21 women who were detained for fleeing their homes and who have chosen to remain in prison rather than be returned to the custody of their abusive fathers.
Deprived of love
A 35-year-old female inmate who requested anonymity said she had been incarcerated for a year. Her story is a tragic one. It started when she was three years old right after her father divorced her mother and forced her and her sister to live with him in the same house. She and her sister only saw their mother when she passed away few years later.
Her father eventually remarried and her new stepmom convinced him to marry his daughter, who was 13 years old at the time, to her 85-year-old father. “My old husband did not lay his hands on me. He didn't want me as a wife but as a nurse and was very nice to me until he died eight years later,” she said while adding that although she inherited SR300,000 from her late husband, her father and step-mother did not give her the money.
Within two months of the death of her husband, the then 21-year-old was married her off to one of her father's relatives. She consented to the marriage because she was trying to find a way to leave her father's house. Her second husband didn't consummate the marriage because he was sick and divorced her after two years.
Finding herself living under her father's custody once again, she was married off to a drug addict, a marriage she did not object to. “I did not refuse the marriage because I told myself that I could bear the torture of anyone except my father. I decided to live at the mercy of my third husband than go back to my father's house. I had six children with him and we lived together for a total of 12 years,” she said.
Abusive husband
As her husband's drug and alcohol addiction worsened, he started to abuse her more frequently and eventually began beating her on a regular basis. Fed up and pregnant with her sixth child, she returned to her father's house and asked him to file for a divorce on her behalf. One day, when she left home to run an errand, she was involved in a horrific traffic accident that kept her in the hospital for 14 months.
“I gave birth at the hospital and the entire time I was there, 1 year and 2 months to be exact, neither my father nor husband visited me,” she recalled.
“One day, a woman, who was visiting her brain-dead husband, saw me in the next room and was shocked when she learned that I was not brain dead. She asked me what I was doing in the brain-dead patient ward. I told her my story and shortly after, she brought a judge to the hospital and he annulled my marriage,” she added.
Once she was discharged from the hospital, she stayed with her step-sister for a while but was eventually asked to leave because her house was too small to accommodate guests. With no other option, she and her children returned to her father's house where his wives began mistreating here again.
When a friend suggested she remarry, one of her father's wives objected to the marriage because he was from another tribe.
“My father's wife refused to let me marry my friend's brother and insisted that I marry her old father but I refused. When my father forced me to accept, I threatened to commit suicide if he did but they ignored my threats,” she said.
Left with no option but to run away, she took her youngest child and sought refuge with a friend. After a while, she filed a lawsuit against her father. Shortly after, she was arrested at her friend's house and put in jail because her father had reported her to the police and claimed she ran away from home. When a judge set her free, she refused to go back to her father's home unless she was permitted to marry her friend's brother. She continues to languish in jail.
One abusive marriage too many
Another female inmate who requested anonymity recalled a similar bitter and painful experience. Also the victim of domestic violence, she has been in prison ever since she was arrested after being reported by her father 10 months ago.
“My father married me off three times. The first time, I married my cousin and we had a son together. A few years later, we divorced and I went back to my father's house and lived there for five years during which I was mistreated,” she said.
Her father then married her off to a man in his 60s but that marriage got off to a rocky start because his first wife and daughters made her life difficult. Eventually, he divorced her and she returned to her father's house.
“When I returned to my father's house, I was shocked to find my brothers accusing me of having illicit relationships with another man because I was divorced. This accusation, coming from my own brothers, was painful. Shortly after, my brothers married me off to an alcoholic who was also abusive,” she said.
After living with him for 8 years, during which she gave birth to a son, she fled and found an apartment to live in with the help of a sympathetic nephew. “My brothers had warned me not to leave my husband but I took my son and fled. My eldest brother eventually found me and beat me up and threatened me with a gun just so I would go home with him,” she added.
Abusive brother
Her brother continued beating her for a long time until she finally reported him to the police. The police officer who was supposed to file the abuse report happened to know her brothers and instead, called her eldest brother to come to the police station and pick her up.
“This time all my brothers beat me up. They took me back home and locked me up in a room. They took my son away from me, saying I wasn't a good mother,” she said while adding her parents were very old and were not in a position to intervene.
Despite the abuse she faced, she did not give up. One day, when her brothers allowed her to see her son, she took him and fled the home. She eventually wound up in Riyadh where she married a Yemeni expatriate who she had met at a traditional market. Soon after they married, police arrested the couple and accused them of Khulwa (being in seclusion with an unrelated male.)
“The judge let me go after he reviewed my case. But I don't want to go back home and live with brothers who have deprived me of basic rights and accused me of false things when I wanted to apply for an ID and complete my school education,” she said.
Paternity proof
The third inmate Al-Riyadh reporter met was a 30-year-old woman who has been in prison for over a year. Her life took a turn for the worse when her father divorced her mother after the latter cheated on him with another man.
“My father deserted our family; me and my siblings ended up living with our mother who immediately forced all of my sisters to get married,” recalled the inmate who requested anonymity.
She was married off to an abusive man who beat her on a regular basis. She said the abuse got worse when he learned about her mother's past. He eventually divorced her after they had their first child together. She returned to her mother who also abused and mistreated her. Not being able to take it anymore, she went to the police and explained her situation to them. To her surprise and shock, she was referred to a care center where she stayed for four months but eventually released after her brother signed her release papers.
“My brother forced me to marry a man over 50 and I was only 26 at the time. I got pregnant shortly after our marriage but my husband asked me to have an abortion. I refused and insisted on having the baby. This is when I was told our marriage contract was Misyar (a temporary type of marriage in which a woman waives many of the rights she would otherwise get in a regular marriage). I was shocked,” she said.
Her husband divorced her by falsifying the divorce date. She filed a case against him and asked the court to require him to undergo a paternity test to prove that he was the biological father of her son. The test result came out positive but her suffering did not end. Her family tried to force her to remarry but she ran away and stayed with a friend.
“My friend suggested that I marry her brother and I agreed. But I was arrested while I was in the company of my friend and her brother and was taken to jail. The judge ordered my release but I have refused to leave the prison,” she said.
Unfortunate cases
Col. Ayoub Naheet, spokesman of the General Directorate of Prisons, said many of the women who are imprisoned for running away from home have been in miserable circumstances and lived a difficult life outside prison. “The problem is some families refuse to take in their daughters again and instead decide to forget about them. My message to those families is: We all make mistakes and we all repent. If their daughter made a mistake, they shouldn't desert her,” he said while adding that if a family refuses to pick up their daughter, the prison will refer her to the Ministry of Social Affairs' care center. Col. Naheet said many female inmates show creative potential and the Technical and Vocational Training Corporation (TVTC) offers numerous courses to female inmates to arm them with skills so that they can find employment and be self-sufficient after they are released from prison.
