Arab News runs this piece in which a Saudi woman, married at 13, argues that marrying at the first signs of puberty is a good thing. Getting married, she says, helps young people avoid a life of sin, whether through pre-marital sex or homosexuality. I suppose that’s one way of looking at it…
Timely marriage may help youths keep sins at bay
ARJUWAN LAKKDAWALA | ARAB NEWSJEDDAH: Sabeeha (not her real name) was 13 when she got married. “My family was extremely conservative. My father did not allow my fiancé to see me before the marriage, but instead told him that his mother and sisters could describe me to him,” Sabeeha, who is now 60, told Arab News.
“My in-laws were very kind. Even though my father stopped their son from even seeing me, they did not get upset.”
She said her mother sat with her and explained to her what was expected in a relationship between husband and wife. “On my wedding night I was unwilling to get intimate with my husband. I locked myself in the bathroom,” she said. “My husband told me from the other side of the door that he just wanted to talk to me, and that if I’m sleepy I should sleep on the bed where it is more comfortable.” She added that after about two hours she came out of the bathroom and he kept his word and did not touch her. “For weeks my husband got to know me and did not try to force me to get intimate with him,” she added. “I have led a happy married life with my husband. Right from the start of our marriage he never hurt me,” she said.
“And I had my first child at 14. It was a normal natural birth, I did not have any complications.”
Sabeeha is in favor of girls and even boys getting married while they are young because in her opinion it prevents them from being tempted into having illicit relationships or becoming homosexual.
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Saudi Gazette/Okaz report on the verdicts of a corruption trial involving land ownership in Thuwal, site of both the King Abdullah Economic City and the King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST). Those developments led land prices to skyrocket and some, it appears, just could not resist the temptation to make a fast Riyal.
Both sides of the case, the prosecutor and the defendants, are appealing the verdicts. The prosecutor believes they were too lenient and that the acquittals of some were in error. The defendants believe they are not guilty.
Six involved in judicial corruption cases
get a total of 25 years in jail
ADNAN AL-SHABRAWIJEDDAH: The Administrative Court acquitted a judge, two notaries public and three others of corruption charges in the Thuwal land scam and sentenced six others to jail terms ranging between three and five years here Saturday, a judicial source told Okaz/Saudi Gazette.
The court issued its verdict with penalties totaling 25 years in prison for those found guilty of bribery, forgery, abuse of power, and illegally making money from government jobs, the source said.
The prosecutor general in the Bureau of Investigation and Prosecution said all the sentences were too light and that the acquittals were incorrect, according to the source.
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A week or so ago, I noted the marriage of a 14-year-old girl to a 70-year-old man. The girl disputed the legality of the marriage as she had never consented. Today, report Saudi Gazette/Okaz, the marriage has ended in a divorce with an anonymous donor giving SR17,000 (US $4,533) to the husband as a dowry repayment and the girl’s father returning 100 sheep.
14-year-old wife granted divorce from 80-year-old husband
ABDUL RAHMAN SHARJIZAN: An 80-year-old man who had demanded repayment of a SR17,000 dowry before he would end his marriage to his 14-year-old wife got divorced Saturday after an anonymous donor provided the money.
Ahmad Rahim, who said he would seek another young bride, and Noura Shouan were granted the divorce in a Sabiya court in Al-Kadami town, which is located in Jizan.
Noura, who was thrilled to get her freedom back, told Okaz/Saudi Gazette that her father had “tricked her into going with him to a school for the eradication of illiteracy to receive her stipend for attendance,” where the marriage contract was completed against her will.
She said she had not wanted to get married, “particularly to a man as old as my grandfather”.
Shouan became depressed – until a grandparent told authorities that she was married against her will.
Rahim said he did not cheat the girl or her family and asked for the marriage through a friend.
“I did not hide my age and I don’t see the age difference as a problem,” he said.
Rahim, who said he was sorry the marriage did not last, is looking for another young wife.
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I’ve written in the past about the abuses domestic servants in Saudi Arabia often face. I’ve noted, too, that sometimes Saudis suffer at the hands of their domestic workers. Arab News runs three pieces—one from the Arabic daily Al-Riyadh—on the problem of runaway maids. Under the current rules concerning sponsorship, Saudis can indeed be left up the creek if a maid runs away. Not only do they lose the money they paid to recruiters, but they can be left responsible for expenses the runaway incurs, for her bad behavior (if she breaks laws), and be left unable to hire replacements through no fault of their own.
The problem, of course, could be limited by drastically reducing the number of domestic workers brought in from poor countries. That could be accomplished through limiting the numbers of visas given, through requiring higher salaries and better benefits, through changing attitudes about working in the home, through changing attitudes about Saudi women’s working as maids, and through enforcing existing laws and regulations. Probably some mix of all of the above will be required.
Fleeing maids give sponsors a tough time
Arab NewsRIYADH: Residents of Riyadh’s Al-Nafl district have complained of the poor procedures used to solve the problem of fleeing maids. The residents said that the system is still in chaos, leaving sponsors with no rights.
According to a recent report in Al-Riyadh newspaper, residents have also complained about the huge amounts of money they spend in order to bring the maids into the country and the long times they have to wait until the visas are ready and maids arrive.
“All the procedures that the recruitment offices apply are not in the favor of the sponsor,” said a sponsor.
“The offices are disorganized, they smell bad, and maids tend to cluster in them in a disorganized manner. New maids also get in contact with old maids who have fled their sponsors and as a result the new ones start to learn how they can flee their sponsors and where they can go.”
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Number of runaway OFWs is going up
RODOLFO C. ESTIMO JR. | ARAB NEWSRIYADH: An increasing number of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) have run away from their employers in Saudi Arabia, according to a non-governmental organization that looks after migrant workers from the Philippines.
Migrante says that although there are no official statistics, their records show about 3,000 runaway OFWs have sought its help.
“My heart sinks when I think about the sad plight of runaway OFWs. After seeking greener pastures overseas, they have run away for reasons disadvantageous to them,” an official from the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) said. “They used to conceal their real status, but now they have become bolder in seeking help so that they can go home to the Philippines.”
To elicit sympathy, these runaway workers even disclose sensitive information, like the fact that they are now working in the black labor market.
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Long queues to get housemaids not respectful
Haya Al-Manie | Al-RiyadhMany citizens still end up standing in long queues in front of government hospitals for appointments. The same problem is faced by Saudis at Civil Affairs offices and also in front of foreign embassies and visa centers for countries such as the US and the UK.
Saudi men are also nowadays standing in long queues in front of the Philippine Embassy to get maids. Some of these maids get salaries that are higher than what our Saudi youth earn working in the private sector.
I cannot deny that the labor from the Philippines is well trained and serious about work, but our homes will not collapse without them. Our children will not suffer from hunger without them and I am sure life will not stop without them.
We should never forget the danger they sometimes pose. They sometimes commit crimes and a large number of them run away. Despite this, it is my view that they are the best of all nationalities that come to the Kingdom, but not of a level that our men should stand in long queues outside their embassy to employ them.
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In h is weekly column for Asharq Alawsat, Mshari Al-Zaydi offers a six-point refutation of the recent fatwa declaring it wrong for women to be mixing with men in the commercial marketplace. He argues that facts, logic, and the history of Saudi Arabia, both distant and recent, contradict the fatwa. I think he covers all the bases…
The Saudi Women Labour Issue
Mshari Al-ZaydiWith regards to the issue of Saudi women and work, there are facts, opinions, and interpretations. These are the facts:
The first fact is that Saudi women constitute half of the overall Saudi population. According to the latest census, the total number of Saudi nationals currently living in Saudi Arabia, out of the 27 million overall population of the Kingdom, has surpassed 18 million, or to be more accurate, 18,707,576. Out of these, 9,527,173 are male, or 50.9 percent of the population, whilst 9,180,403 are female, making up the other 49.1 percent.
Secondly, compared to overall statistics, the unemployment rate amongst women is particularly alarming. According to what Saudi writer and businessman, Fahd al-Du’ghithr, reported in the Saudi newspaper ‘al-Watan’, the latest figures revealed by the Saudi Ministry of Labour indicate that the unemployment rate among women has reached 28 percent, yet it stands at only 7 percent for men. Female unemployment is rising at a faster rate compared to male unemployment, due to the limited job opportunities available for women.
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Saudi media opine (in both editorials and news stories) about the 2010 US elections that saw a wave of Republican victories. The pieces note, correctly, that the election results are to be seen as a repudiation of the agenda set by Pres. Obama and grave concern over the economy. Majorities of 65%-70% of Americans believe that ‘the country is headed in the wrong direction.’
The Saudi pieces err in their assessment of the Tea Party Movement, though. That’s not terribly surprising as the US media is still floundering about trying to understand it as well. The Arab News editorial, for instance, construes the Tea Party as ‘extremist’. It is not. It is another form of American political fundamentalism that believes, as did Thomas Jefferson, that the better government is a smaller government. It is an angry movement, however, angry that massive amounts of money have been spent by government with little to show for it. The Tea Party is not part of the Republican Party, though it is closer to it than to the Democratic Party. Historically, the Republican Party has stood for smaller government and restrained governmental spending. During the 1990s and the Bush Administration, however, that party seemed to forget its principles and adopted the spending patterns of the Democratic Party. That is what created and energized the Tea Party. Already, Tea Party members elected to Congress have been warning the Republican Party that it is going to have to change its ways. The Tea Party Movement was willing to lose some elections in order to make its point: the old ways, the inside-the-beltway candidates, are not going to be blithely supported as they were in the past.
In its editorial, Saudi Gazette argues that the Republicans spent the campaign season inflaming their supporters’ anger and fear. Not so much, actually. They instead pointed out the consequences of elements of the Democratic agenda that should have inspired fear and anger. The sweep of seats in the House of Representatives, but even more, in the state legislatures and executives, is a pretty clear sign that the majority of the American people want something other than what’s being offered.
This map (via The New York Times) shows how comprehensively the Republican Party succeeded in the elections for seats in the House of Representatives. This map shows Republican successes in winning gubernatorial seats in the various states. This is actually more important than it looks as next year, as the result of the US Census, redistricting and reapportionment will be taking place. The number of seats in the House of Representatives granted each state is determined by its population—though even the least populated states are guaranteed one Representative. Districts are drawn, generally speaking, by state governments and are subject to approval or veto by the governor. Several ‘Blue states’ are losing Representatives (e.g. Ohio -2, Pennsylvania -1, New York -1, California -1) because their populations, relative to other states’, have dropped. Other states, predominantly ‘Red states’, are gaining Representatives (e.g. Texas +4, Florida +2, South Carolina +1). In total, nine or ten ‘Red states’ are going to have more members of Congress than they do this year. The state legislatures and governors can be expected to redraw district lines in accord with their own political leanings. The implications of this on the 2012 elections—the campaigning for which started yesterday—are profound.
American ‘Transcendentalist’ poet Ralph Waldo Emerson famously wrote, ‘Foolish inconsistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.’ In their recent fatwa forbidding women from working in situations that put them in contact with men, the Saudi General Presidency of Scholarly Research and Ifta (i.e., the ‘Fatwa Commission’) shows a stunning display of inconsistency that simply baffles reason.
Arab News translates a piece from the Arabic Okaz that argues the point:
It is haram to be a cashier but halal to be a beggar
KHALAF AL-HARBI | OKAZA woman sits under the searing sun selling men’s underwear. There is nothing wrong with this work because it is considered halal.
A man in a women’s fashion shop sells lingerie and discusses the measurements of female customers with them, which is also considered halal.
A poor woman begging at traffic lights is also halal, but a woman who works as a cashier at a supermarket is totally against Islam (haram) as it leads to gender mixing!
We innocently ask why is it not considered gender mixing when a man sits on the cashier’s desk and sells cheese, beans and olives to women?
Why is it not permissible when the opposite happens? Why is it considered gender mixing and against Islam when a woman sits at the cashier’s desk selling cheese, beans and olives to men?
The answer you may receive is this: “We have told you that this is haram. No more argument.”
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As this piece demonstrates, and as earlier comments here show as well, there are countless situations in daily Saudi life that put men and women in the same space. Many of them, most perhaps, do not rise to the level of illegal ‘gender mixing’. Only some, the ones that result in female autonomy, appear to be judged haram, or forbidden. A male driver, in a private car with an unrelated woman, certainly raises the possibility of a khulwa (gender mixing in seclusion) situation. At times, according to reports from Saudis, it actually leads to sex. But it is permissible. A woman standing at a cash register in a public supermarket, however, is deemed too dangerous to morality to be permitted. A male commenting on the size and shape of an unrelated female’s breasts is okay, if it takes place in a lingerie shop, but a woman’s doing so is forbidden. Umm, okay… Actually, it’s not okay as it makes absolutely no sense. The fatwa against women’s working in public cannot be based on reason, but solely on the outcome the judges desire. That that desire makes no sense doesn’t seem to matter. It is indeed a situation of ‘No more argument’.
There are too many teachers with the wrong credentials in Saudi Arabia, Arab News reports. It seems that either students make the wrong guesses about which fields would have high demand for teachers or that they were misled. In any event, according to the article, there are 350,000 people with valid teaching credentials who cannot find work in state schools. Instead, they have to take up lower paying jobs in private schools, often in disciplines outside their study areas.
I’ve two suggestions: first, reduce the number of students taken into the education colleges, perhaps reducing the number of those colleges. Second, offer more generalized studies so that inter-disciplinary studies become the norm and it’s not so awkward to shift among them.
Education grads beat unemployment by working odd jobs
DIANA AL-JASSEM | ARAB NEWSJEDDAH: Many Saudi graduates of education colleges claim that it is far too difficult to get teaching jobs at schools, so they work odd jobs in order to survive.
Some of them say they are forced to work for low salaries at private schools where they often end up teaching subjects that they have not studied in college.
Many Saudis choose to study at education colleges to pursue a career in teaching, which is considered highly lucrative. If they are successful in finding jobs in government schools, they can earn between SR6,000 and SR10,000 a month.
With a large number of students graduating every year, there is a saturation in the field, resulting in growing unemployment among trained teachers.
Recently, more than 12,000 teachers gathered in front of the Ministry of Education in Riyadh to complain about nonavailability of jobs.
Many graduates are forced to work in private schools, even if it means teaching subjects that they have not specialized.
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The iqal is the black, rope-like affair that (mostly) Gulf Arab men use to hold their shamagh or ghutrah in place. It is assumed to have originated as a camel hobble, with looping it over the head being the easiest manner of getting it out of one’s way. It’s very much part of the national dress in Saudi Arabia, but as Saudi Gazette reports, it’s disappearing from Saudi secondary schools. The article wonders why this might be.
I can think of one organized group that shuns the iqal as a manifestation of vanity: the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice and other religious conservatives. Might it be that the conservative religious establishment, directly or indirectly, is exerting its influence in schools on the matter? It certainly wouldn’t be the first time something like this happened.
But perhaps it’s only a statement of teenage fashion, a transgressive act undertaken to thumb noses as societal norms.
The mystery of the iqaal:
even schoolboys don’t know why they don’t wear itTAIF: Why don’t Saudi schoolboys wear the iqaal? The swiftest glance inside a classroom at any school in the Kingdom will confirm that no pupils wear the black band that circles the skull and holds the headdress cloth in position, but when the question is put to those same pupils, as Al-Watan daily did this week, not a single one will be able to give a good reason why.
“On my first day of classes I saw that all the others weren’t wearing the iqaal, and I never questioned why,” secondary pupil Yasser Al-Barrak told the newspaper. “I didn’t try and wear it to see what would happen as I had the feeling that the school would punish me. I’ve nearly finished school altogether now, but I still after all these years don’t know why it’s banned.”
Abdul Majed Al-Nugai’i, also at secondary school, described the iqaal as “a national symbol which people of the Gulf are proud of”.
“I don’t understand though why we don’t wear it in public schools. Students are supposed to be able to wear all the Saudi national dress to school,” he said. “For some guys school is the only time they don’t wear it.” He also pointed out that many university students wear the iqaal and do not seem subject to the same restrictions.
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Arab News reports on public reaction to the new fatwa that declares it haram for women to work in a place with mixed sexes. One commenter suggests that the ulema have no idea of the actual working situations; another complains about the council’s supposition that Saudis are abject slaves to their ‘urges’.
Saudis shocked by fatwa banning women cashiers
RIMA AL-MUKHTAR | ARAB NEWSJEDDAH: Saudis have been left shocked after the General Presidency of Scholarly Research and Ifta issued a fatwa on Sunday banning women cashiers from working in the Kingdom’s supermarkets.
“It is not permitted for a Muslim woman to work in a mixed environment with men who are not related to them, and women should look for jobs that do not lead to them interacting with men which might cause attraction from both sides,” the fatwa stated.
The Kingdom’s top government-sanctioned board of senior Islamic scholars has endorsed the fatwa, which also calls for a ban on women cashiers because it violates the Kingdom’s rules on the segregation of sexes. The decision comes after a conservative preacher called for a boycott of supermarkets, which employ women cashiers.
Members of the public have reacted with dismay to the fatwa saying it does not make sense and is unfair to women who need to work.
“The people who issued this fatwa clearly did not see the location and condition of these cashiers,” said Abdulrahman Fakhri, a 32-year-old businessman. “Those women need the money or they wouldn’t be working like this,” he added.
“I wonder whether they’ve issued this fatwa because they’re afraid of women or scared of them,” said Malak Al-Harby. “Religious people act as if Saudi women are weak and cannot resist flirting with men,” she added.
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And while women are being shuttered from the marketplace, the Minister of Municipal and Rural Affairs is getting ready to include them in the new round of elections for the National Municipal Council (not to be confused with the Municipal Councils in the various cities). Saudi Gazette reports, though, that even here religious conservatives don’t think women are up to that job as they’re only suited for womenly things. I wonder if Lysistrata was ever translated in Saudi Arabia? There are, after all, many female ‘seed-market-porridge-vegetable-sellers’ and ‘garlic-innkeeping-bread-sellers’. But I’m supposing not.
Minister supports women’s role in polls
MOHANNAD SHARAWIJEDDAH: Prince Mansour Bin Meteb Bin Abdul Aziz, the Minister of Municipal and Rural Affairs, supports women’s involvement in next year’s elections for the country’s national Municipal Council – even though there is no official approval yet for women to stand as candidates or to vote.
“I don’t mind women taking part in the upcoming elections,” he remarked last week during a press conference at his office. He did not elaborate on his comment.
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The Washington Post reports on new information about the ‘ink-jet bombs’ discovered in air couriered packages last week. Among the news is that the suspected bomb-maker is a Saudi, on the Saudi most-wanted list, Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri. Al-Asiri is also believed to have created the failed ‘underwear bomb’ found on Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab over the Christmas season and the ‘rectal bomb’ that killed al-Asiri’s brother in an attempt to assassinate Pr. Muhammad bin Naif last year.
U.S. official says 2 package bombs were intended
to detonate ‘in flight’
Peter FinnThe two package bombs intercepted by authorities in Britain and Dubai last week appear to have been built to detonate “in flight” and to bring down the planes carrying them, President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser said.
“At this point we, I think, would agree with the British that it looks as though they were designed to be detonated in flight,” said the adviser, John Brennan, speaking Sunday on the CBS program “Face the Nation.”
The assessment, combined with the revelation that one of the packages traveled on passenger flights in the Middle East, underlined just how narrowly authorities had averted a potential catastrophe. It also raised puzzling questions about why the packages, which contained bombs skillfully packed inside modified printer cartridges, were addressed to two synagogues in Chicago, a potential warning flag given that the packages originated in Yemen.
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The BBC reports that information concerning this plot came to Saudi attention from an Al-Qaeda defector who returned to Saudi Arabia two weeks ago…
UPDATE: (11/02/10): The Washington Post runs this piece on further investigation into the bombs found in the packages. It notes, too, that Yemen has now charged Al-Awlaki with ‘promoting violence and the killing of foreigners.’
Cargo plane bombs more lethal than Christmas Day attempt;
Yemen charges Aulaqi in absentia
The Saudi government recently issued a decree banning the ‘wild fatawa’, religious rulings given by any Tom, Dick, or Harry imam. Instead, fatawa would only be issued by a central, authoritative body of senior religious scholars. This, it was believed, would get rid of the strange statements, like the one encouraging men to nurse from unrelated women so that they could be in their presence without sin. Now, that body, the Senior Board of Ulema, has issued its first judgment and it’s a bad one.
The new fatwa explicitly bans women from acting as cashiers in markets and as vendors (presumably in shops), because it potentially involves a mixing of the sexes. And, as we are often told, albeit indirectly, by the religious authorities, a Saudi man and Saudi woman cannot be trusted to be in each other’s presence lest they go at each other like rutting minks, even on a public street. The Saudi libido must be astronomical. Is there a Guinness Record in the offing?
Of course, this ruling runs smack into history, where women in Arabia—and yes, during the time of the Prophet and including women of his family—held positions in commerce, in trade, in the day-to-day economic activities of the cities and towns. Alas, now, for the literally poor Bedouin women who set up their blankets along the streets, selling their crafts in order to earn paltry amounts of cash. Saudi women are now being signaled that any co-mingling of the sexes is going to be viewed harshly. Alas for those women who’ve had the luck to find jobs in offices.
I continue to be amazed that religious authorities continue to treat the country’s population as a group of hyper-sexed adolescents. Isn’t self-control a part of Islamic doctrine? Isn’t maturity the ability to discern when certain actions are appropriate and when and where not? If the sight of women is so inflammatory to some men, perhaps the lesser evil would be for those men to pluck out their eyes in order to avoid sin.
Saudi Gazette/Okaz
Clerics endorse ban on female cashiers
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s top government-sanctioned board of senior Islamic clerics has endorsed a fatwa that calls for a ban on female vendors because the mixing of sexes at the workplace opens the door for all evil (or Fitnah)”.
The Senior Board of Ulema, chaired by the Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Aal Al-Sheikh, said in its ruling Sunday that the mixing of sexes is forbidden and women should not seek jobs where they could encounter men.
The board urged women to stay away from these jobs for the sake of Allah Who will reward them accordingly, citing Qur’anic verses and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).
The decision comes after a conservative preacher was reprimanded in August for violating a government-mandated restriction on fatwas by calling for a boycott of supermarkets employing female cashiers.