About 70 percent of children in Saudi Arabia suffer rape and sexual harassment at the hands of relatives and 30 percent from domestic helpers and strangers, a new study has found. The Ministry of Education has a major role to play in launching social awareness campaigns of child sexual harassment, said Sara Al-Abdulkareem, sociology professor at King Saud University in Riyadh in her study. Al-Abdulkareem was speaking at a scholarly conference at the Women's Health Sciences College in Riyadh Saturday. The conference dubbed ‘Family Protection from Violence Against Women and Children' had speakers from different related disciplines. Muna Al-Awad, gynecologist at King Saud Medical Complex, said that she receives at least three cases of sexual harassment at her clinic every week, mostly against housemaids from their employers. Domestic violence in Saudi Arabia accounts for 22 percent of 5,600 domestic abuse cases reviewed by the National Society of Human Rights, she said. Incest cases accounted for 20 percent for every 300 cases and verbal abuse against women is just “common practice.” Social violence against women is seen at denying their basic rights, including blocking access to public education, restriction of movement, and forced marriages, especially to the elderly. Economic rights of women are experienced at different levels including illegal confiscation of their monthly incomes, denying of rightful inheritance by their brothers and relatives despite the disapproval of the court. Married women, according to Al-Awad, are the most vulnerable to violence at the hands of their husbands and unmarried women at the hands of their brothers, who are more aggressive than fathers. The conference recommended that women be educated on self-defense techniques and that strict regulations against domestic violence be enforced. It also recommended that victims be provided with easy access to authorities in order to lodge complaints and that awareness programs be established.
