{UAH} SAUDI ARABIAN WOMEN FLEEING EN MASSE

Frank Mujabi/ Annet Kobby/ Gwokto/ Mayimuna/ Afuwa Kasule/ Edward Mo Irundrua,/ Gwokto/ Semuwemba

I was so shocked this week to learn about the  number of Saudi women who are fleeing the brutal kingdom following the much publicised  case of the teenager Rahaf Mohammed who fled the Kingdom and  is now in Canada. It is estimated that between 150-300  women  are trying to leave the blood-soaked Kingdom every week.

Activists have set up a website and email contacts to help these women. Thats how I got to know about it, and got involved because they asked me to be on one of the QUICK REACTION TEAMS. We are the people who the women in trouble in the Saudi Kingdom will initially contact-  through confidential email addresses- this is when they are on the point of leaving, or are in trouble because their plans have been discovered by their families. Then it is a case of mobilising international support as we did in the case of Rahaf Mohammed.  Her case attracted the biggest social media intervention ever witnessed and it is correct to say Rahaf Mohammed was saved by social media.

Most of the women wanting to leave fall in two categories:

1. Young girls fleeing the sharia guardianship laws which require a woman to get permission from a male relative before she can do anything. A woman needs permission to fart from a male- thats how oppressive the Kingdom has become to women. The strange thing is a lot of these girls are educated and have degrees- like in most parts of the world, the women of Saudi Arabia are more  and better educated than the men. The problem is that the women are not allowed to work by their husbands, and so sit at home  with their university degrees, looking after children. 

2. Political activists, largely women campaigning for the abolition of the guardianship laws and for greater freedom, for eg the right to drive a car, go to a swimming pool, own a phone etc. I have posted here the case of Israa al-Gongham, the Shia human rights activist who has been sentenced to death and is , waiting to be beheaded.

The Saudi Kingdom must surely change. It can not keep women in captivity for ever. Slavery ended a long time ago, and it is futile for the pot-bellied  Saudi mullahs to think they can carry on as if nothing is happenning around them- that they can keep the Kingdom locked up in the dark ages, for eternity or  till kingdom come.

Bobby

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