http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1§ion=0&article=132086&d=30&m=1&y=2010&pix=kingdom.jpg&category=Kingdom
Saturday 30 January 2010 (14 Safar 1431)
Brutality against women continues
Badea Abu Al-Naja | Arab News
MAKKAH: Incidents of Saudi husbands mistreating their wives
continue to occur, causing much anguish to the women involved. The mistreatment
is usually of a worse kind when the wife is non-Saudi.
"We were married for 17 years. My marriage was full of all
sorts of miseries and pain," said a woman from a neighboring Arab country who
was married to a Saudi man 23 years older than her. Narrating her story, the
woman who married when she was 16 said problems began four years after her
marriage.
"It was then that my ex-husband began humiliating me, beating
me and kicking me out of the apartment. I had no where to go but stand in the
corridors of our apartment block in my nightgown," she said, adding that some
of her neighbors would let her come into their homes until her husband would
let her back in.
After pressure from his relatives and friends, the woman's
husband finally agreed to process paperwork for her to become a Saudi. "After
that my suffering took a new turn. He began to cheat on me in our own
apartment. I caught him with other ladies. The most painful was when I caught
him in compromising position with the housemaid who had been working with us
for six years," she said.
The woman, who asked her name not be published, said the
mental torture she suffered was intolerable and that her husband then deserted
her. "After some time, he rented an apartment in the same building to trouble
me more. He would disconnect electricity and water from my apartment and when
he failed to get a reaction from me, he tried forcing me to return to my home
country. He exerted all types of pressure on me until I finally gave in and
left my children to return to my homeland," she said.
She added that after eight months abroad she could no longer
bear staying away from her children. "I complained to the Saudi Embassy in my
country. The ambassador was surprised that a Saudi was complaining against her
Saudi husband outside the Kingdom and advised me to go back to the Kingdom and
file a lawsuit against him in the courts there," she said.
So she returned to the Kingdom and filed a complaint at a
court asking for a divorce and access to her children. "When my husband came to
know about this, he reported the case to the police accusing me of running
away. During this time I was staying with a woman friend. He called the friend
and told her that she would be held responsible for harboring me. As a result
my friend politely asked me to leave," she said.
The woman said after all her friends declined to put her up,
she had nowhere to go except the Grand Mosque. "I stayed there for six months
without money or clothes. I kept my passport and ID tightly tied around my
waist and do-gooders would give me money to buy food and clothes," she said. It
was during her stay in the Grand Mosque that she became acquainted with a woman
who took her to a welfare building where she is still staying.
She added that last month, a judge ruled that the couple
should reconcile. "But we failed to do so. My husband told the judge that I
wanted a divorce in order to get the delayed dowry. I replied that I did not
want his money or the gold he bought for me. I abandoned my right to child
custody in exchange for a khula (legal separation) which I finally got," she
said.
The woman said she has not seen her children for seven months
and would do anything to see them. "My ex-husband does not want me to live in
peace. He becomes happy by torturing me and has even complained to the police
that I came to his house when he was not there and took my children's mobile
phones and cameras," she added.
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