year-old girl, a victim of brutal domestic violence at the hands of her father, died just a few minutes before reaching the emergency room at Iman Hospital, south of Riyadh. The hospital report said that the child sustained first-degree burns all over her body and that there were old and fresh marks on her back made by a whip. The face of the 12-year-old girl, identified as S.M., had most of the skin removed as a result of the boiling water that had been poured on it, the report said. The hospital reported the case to the police who detained the father and took custody of his other children, two boys and one girl. The 9-year-old daughter was found to have been physically abused by her father and was taken for treatment to the Riyadh Medical Complex. The two boys, 7 and 8, who were spared the physical, but not the psychological torture, as they witnessed their father abusing their two sisters, were given to their uncle who pledged to protect them. “How can a child continue to trust a parent, who has betrayed them?” a police officer asked when handing the children over to the uncle. The Ministry of Social Affairs was told of the case which is now being investigated by the Commission of Investigation and Prosecution. These cases of domestic violence are just the tip of the iceberg of a generation in the Kingdom being swallowed up by the rising menace triggered by the social unrest ensconced in the deepest fibers of many families. A sociologist said, “Think about it, if beating is the magic solution for correcting aberrant behavior, then why doesn't beating solve the problem? Why does the child continue to repeat the same unacceptable behavior over and over?” Adbah Al-Subai, a sociologist in a Taif hospital, said the most common types of physical abuse in the Kingdom are classified into physical and mental such as using a hot rod, malnutrition, sexual abuse, and parental deprivation. She believes that the loss of religious consciousness and spiritual discipline, among other psychological reasons like depression and schizophrenia, have led to the increase of this social destruction and meltdown of family values. Al-Subai has urged the establishment of an independent government body with the authority and power to face this social challenge. A human rights activist said that the Makkah region has the highest rate of domestic violence in the Kingdom based on the volume of cases received by the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR). The Makkah region officially registered 180 cases, 152 in Jeddah and 28 in Makkah, 49 cases in Riyadh, 13 cases in Jizan, and 22 in the Eastern Province, according to the 2007 annual report of the NSHR, which indicated that there were 265 cases of domestic violence filed with the NSHR. The cases ranged from sexual abuse to parental deprivation. Most of the cases were filed against divorced husbands, said Suhaila Zein Al-Abidin, head of the Studies and Consultations Department at the NSHR. There is some connection between domestic violence and society-sanctioned forms of discipline perpetuated in the home with the blessing of society, she said. A divorced woman filed a case with the NSHR against her ex-husband who took away their children, putting her in a state of psychological agony for over three years, she said. Social protection houses for victims of domestic violence do not eradicate the problem, she said. The real culprit is psychologically ill and is in need of both treatment and punishment, she said. The laws and punishments for domestic violence cases should be codified and investigated by a specialized court, she said. The Family Development Center said that 850 cases of runaway girls due to domestic violence were officially reported in one year alone. There are many other cases that go unreported, the center said. The center's records say that at least 80 percent of drug addicts were physically abused at some point at their childhood, leading to a lifetime of psychiatric disorders. Men top the list of abusers in the Kingdom with at least 90 percent of the cases committed against wives, said Rashood Al-Khareef, sociologist at King Saud University (KSU) in Riyadh. There are many reasons for this, he said, such as drugs, poverty, unemployment, lack of religious consciousness, and lack of social monitoring of families. “Why does this problem keep arising with society seeming to pay no attention at all?” he asked. Domestic violence is as old as mankind, but recently it has surprisingly and noticeably increased, he said. “It could be a result of the march of urbanization and development that has not been reconciled with social awareness,” he said. It is an inherited behavior the child acquires in early childhood from his social surroundings which leads to engaging in anti-social behavior in adulthood, said Muhammad Shiraz, sociologist at Umm Al-Qura University in Makkah. To the list of domestic violence cases in the Kingdom, Shiraz added: Forcing girls to get married without their consent. He, like Al-Khareef, blamed fast-paced development and the lack of comprehensive social awareness programs for the increase in domestic violence cases.
