http://www.arabnews
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The woman, who asked her name not be published, said the mental torture she suffered was intolerable and that her husband then deserted her.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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