Treatment of women in Saudia Arabia

12 June 2003 — The documents they needed to enter Saudi Arabia were in order, their visas were valid. Yet, because they were foreign women traveling alone into Saudi Arabia, according to their testimony, they were subjected to humiliating and frightening experience at the airport.

“Maybe it’s because I’m not Muslim, but I was wearing my abaya out of respect for local culture and I told the passport official that my husband was waiting for me outside,” said a South African woman recounting her unpleasant experience to Arab News. Last September she and her one-and-a-half-year-old son returned from South Africa to Jeddah on Saudi Arabian Airlines. “I know customs officials everywhere have a reputation for not being friendly but I don’t think being obnoxious is part of the job description,” she said.

The official shouted at her and spoke to her in a brusque and rude fashion. “He insisted on keeping my passport and my luggage while I was escorted by two police officers to the waiting area where my husband was and we brought him in.” The official gave them some trouble because her husband’s iqama was still being processed. But all his papers were in order and he had proof that she was his wife. “I know it’s difficult for foreign women to get into Saudi Arabia and we’re asked to keep a low profile, but I don’t think that the official’s position gives him the authority to be so overpowering and overbearing,” said the woman. She told many of her friends about this unsettling experience and found that it was not uncommon and that her story is nothing compared to the horror stories of what other western women have endured over the years.

“These officials have the reputation for being rude to women,” she said. Like many foreign women flying into Saudi Arabia unaccompanied by their male guardian, she did not report this incident.

She suggested that these officials receive training on how to treat people and how to behave more professionally.

“We do talk to our staff and direct them to be cordial, especially with foreigners, and to be calm and smile because they represent many people’s first contact with Saudis — and we are after all a service sector,” said an official speaking on behalf of General Abdul Aziz Sajeeni, director general of immigration.

As for retaining the woman’s passport while she brought her husband in, “This is our policy because we do not allow foreign women to enter without a relative or sponsor picking them up at the airport,” the official explained.

Another woman came to Saudi Arabia for the first time on a British Airways flight last April, and she had a terrible experience in Jeddah. “First, the official at the luggage counter emptied my hand luggage and sneered at me when he took out some sanitary items. Then a security guard accompanied me to the waiting area to find my husband but as my flight had arrived earlier than scheduled, my husband was not there. The guard led me back to a small empty room with a few chairs in it and locked me inside. He kept ordering me to move from one chair to another and then came very close to my face and grabbed his fly; he didn’t expose himself but sort of adjusted himself. I was held there for fifteen minutes before the guard finally agreed to find my husband who had arrived by that time.”

This story came from an Irish woman who said it was an intimidating and frightening experience. When she mentioned it to people on the compound where she lives, they weren’t surprised. “‘That is mild compared to some other stories,’ they told me.”

“If a traveler has a complaint, there are officials on-call 24 hours a day at the airport, plus immigration officers and supervisors who can be contacted and talked to. We try to provide excellent service and take immediate steps to reprimand those who fall short or misbehave,” said the immigration official.

It appears that single women coming into the Kingdom on their own are more vulnerable. This was certainly true for another Irish woman. She is single and works as a teacher at one of Jeddah’s private schools. Last February, she went on a short trip to Egypt and although she had a letter from the school, when she arrived back in Jeddah, the passport officials wouldn’t admit her. “I had arranged for a taxi driver to pick me up but he didn’t have a paper from the school, so they refused to let me leave,” she complained. They searched her luggage, took her to another terminal without telling her why, searched her luggage again and then asked her to wait in a locked room. She refused to go in, so they agreed to let her wait outside the room. She then asked if she could make a phone call, “My sponsor is a princess but I didn’t have her number so I called a friend at the compound.” The friend called the school but it was closed. After several phone calls, the friend finally reached the head administrator at the boy’s school, a Saudi. He came to pick the woman up but had to fill in some forms before she was allowed to leave with him. “I was there for six hours without knowing what would happen to me.”

She wants to talk about her experience in order to highlight the inconsistency in applying the rules and get a clarification of the rules. “Women have to be picked up by their sponsor and this is out of concern for their safety,” said the official. “But we do have a lounge for them in every airport where they can rest and eat and drink while they are waiting. We have no wish to keep passengers waiting a long time in the airport; it’s a liability.”

Hasan Adawi, a Saudi, witnessed a similar incident with a young Indian woman coming in from Eritrea to Jeddah on May 13. The end of that incident, however, was less pleasant than the others. She had come to the Kingdom to visit her uncle and sister who work for Saudi Arabian Airlines and she had a one-month transit visa. Her uncle was waiting for her with the necessary papers but the passport official refused to let her through because she was not accompanied by a mahram (male guardian) even though she is not Muslim. Adawi later learned from her uncle that she stayed at the airport for more than twenty-four hours before boarding a plane to India.