At least half of Saudi working women have to dig themselves out from under a mountain of high interest-rate bank loans, a bank employee said, with female teachers on top of the list of bank borrowers. Uncontrolled spending and poor money management have landed working women in hot water as many of them may face jail, bankruptcy, stress and a socially distorted image. And it is getting worse. The female manager of the women's branch of a bank said that they receive at least ten loan applications a day from working women. “We are careful now when we consider a bank loan as a large number of female borrowers have defaulted on their monthly loan re-payments, which forces the bank to take legal actions against them,” said Fatimah Asiri. Some working women have cut back on their spending to pay off their travel, medical treatment, or family loans, the banker said. “Many of the female teachers fall blindly into the trap of debt, thinking that it is easy money,” said Nouf Al-Otaibi, a school teacher. “But the easy money comes with years of payback, she said. Al-Otaibi's husband took a mortgage loan in her name, but after building the house in his own name, he divorced her and got a new wife, leaving her holding the bag, she said. “I trusted him and he betrayed me with divorce, debt, and a woman in a house built by my own money” she said. Another working Saudi woman said that she no longer enjoys her SR3,000 monthly salary as a big chunk of it goes to the bank to pay off her SR50,000 medical treatment loan. Lamia Al-Gethami, who was divorced four years ago with four children in her custody, said that she always used to take personal loans from the bank to make ends meet for her and her children. “The older they grew, the more the riyal amount borrowed increased,” she said. Al-Gethami added that she does not know how to get out of this “vicious circle of debt”. Umm Husam fell victim to her greed for a get-rich-quick scheme, she explained, when the stock market was shooting up in 2005, taking loans without informed decisions in order to jump into the market. “Now I have lost everything - my salary for years and my shares,” she said. “Our salaries are not blessed,” said a female teacher. Most of her colleagues at the local elementary school don't save a penny of their relatively large salaries despite being free of debt, she said. Psychologist Nouf Al-Ju'aid said that women, in general, have a distorted image of happiness, believing that the more they spend, the better life they have. “That will only escalate family conflicts,” she said. Uncontrolled spending financed by loans can lead to psychological complications, she said, adding that people in debt should look for a debt counselor or support group.
