A young Saudi woman was locked up by her family for half a year for refusing a forced marriage. She finally managed to escape to Thailand. Her case has made a splash on social media — but she's not the only one.
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Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun has reason to hope: It now appears that Thai authorities will not deport her to Saudi Arabia. The young Saudi woman waited in a hotel at Bangkok for an entire day without knowing where she was going next. Back to Riyadh, as the Saudi embassy in Bangkok demanded? Or on to Australia, her actual destination, where she can expect support among others from Human Rights Watch (HRW)? She wants to go to Australia to get away from her family, which locked her up for six months because she refused to agree to a forced marriage.
HRW Middle East expert Adam Coogle welcomed the fact that the Thai authorities did not put her on the flight back to Kuwait as initially intended. The Thai immigration authorities had first declared they would not send the young woman back to Kuwait. From there, she would presumably have been transferred to Saudi Arabia. Then the deputy prime minister's office said Thailand wanted to deport the woman after all. Finally, staff of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) were allowed to meet with Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun, Coogle said.
Not a singular case
Alqunun is not the first young woman to try to flee Saudi Arabia. In April 2017, Dina Lasloom, a young Saudi citizen, was arrested at Manila airport; she, too, wanted to avoid a forced marriage.
She was deported to Saudi Arabia the next day; her whereabouts are unknown. According to Bloomberg news agency, citing an unnamed source in the Saudi government, Lasloom is being held at a women's prison. Saudi human rights activist Moudi Aljohani believes she is dead. HRW has no authoritative information on Lasloom's fate.
"We have documented several such cases over the years," Coogle told DW. "Again and again, women in Saudi Arabia are mistreated and denied a self-determined life because the male members of their family want to be in control." Some women tried to escape this rule by fleeing abroad.
In recent years, Saudi Arabia has lifted its driving ban on women and made other strides toward granting women equal rights. But progress is incredibly slow, and lags far behind the rest of the world.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/H. Ammar
1955: First school for girls, 1970: First university for women
Girls have not always been able to go to school like these students in Riyadh. Enrollment at the first school for girls, Dar Al Hanan, began in 1955. The Riyadh College of Education, the first higher education institution for women, opened in 1970.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/F. Nureldine
2001: ID cards for women
At the start of the 21st century, women could get personal ID cards for the first time. The cards are the only way for them to prove who they are, for example in disputes relating to inheritance or property issues. IDs were only issued with the permission of a woman's guardian, though, and to the guardian instead of directly to the woman. Only in 2006 were women able to get IDs without permission.
Image: Getty Images/J. Pix
2005: End of forced marriages - on paper
Saudi Arabia banned forced marriage in 2005, but marriage contracts continue to be hammered out between the husband-to-be and the father of the bride, not the bride herself.
Image: Getty Images/A.Hilabi
2009: The first female government minister
In 2009, King Abdullah appointed the first female minister to Saudi Arabia's government. Noura al-Fayez became the deputy education minister for women's affairs.
Image: Foreign and Commonwealth Office
2012: First female Olympic athletes
Saudi Arabia agreed to allow female athletes to compete on the national team for the Olympics for the first time. One of them was Sarah Attar, who ran the women's 800 meter race at the 2012 Olympics in London wearing a headscarf. Before the Games, there was speculation that the Saudi Arabian team might be banned for gender discrimination if they didn't allow women to participate.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/J.-G.Mabanglo
2013: Women are allowed to ride bicycles and motorbikes
Saudi leaders allowed women to ride bicycles and motorbikes for the first time in 2013 — but only in recreational areas, wearing full Islamic body covering and with a male relative present.
Image: Getty Images/AFP
2013: First women in the Shura
In February 2013, King Abdullah swore in the first 30 women to the Shura, Saudi Arabia's consultative council. This allowed women to be appointed to these positions, soon they would be allowed to actually run for office...
Image: REUTERS/Saudi TV/Handout
2015: Women can vote and get elected
In Saudi Arabia's 2015 municipal elections, women were able to vote and run for office for the first time. By contrast, New Zealand was the first country to give women the vote, in 1893. Germany did so in 1919. At the 2015 Saudi polls, 20 women were elected to municipal roles in the absolute monarchy.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/A. Batrawy
2017: First female head of the Saudi stock exchange
In February 2017, the Saudi stock exchange names the first female chairperson in its history, Sarah Al Suhaimi.
Image: pictur- alliance/abaca/Balkis Press
2018: Women to be allowed in sports stadiums
On October 29, 2017, the country's General Sports Authority announced that women would be allowed into sports stadiums for the first time. Three previously male-only arenas will soon be open for women as well, starting in early 2018.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/F. Nureldine
2018: Driving ban eliminated
On September 26, 2017, Saudi Arabia announced that women would soon be allowed to drive, causing a flurry of driving courses for women to prepare for June 2018, when they would no longer need permission from their male guardian to get a driver's license or need their guardian in the car when they drive.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/H. Jamali
2019: Saudi women to be notified by text message if they are divorced
The new law, designed to protect them from having their marriage ended without their knowledge, will allow women to check their marital status online or visit a court to get a copy of divorce papers. Human rights defenders say the law does nothing to address the fact that Saudi women can only obtain divorces in exceedingly limited cases — such as with her husband’s consent or if he has harmed her.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/H. Ammar
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Reforms needed 'from within'
Alqunun's case is extraordinary, said Saudi journalist Arafat Al Majed, a member of Qatif city council. "It would be unfair to say that Alqunun stands for her entire generation," Al Majed told DW. The young woman decided to turn against her family, she said, adding that it happens — "but not too often." The laws on how to handle such cases are currently being reformed, she said. "It would be best if the kingdom did this on its own, Al Majed added. "Pressure from the outside is counterproductive," she argued, saying that many Saudis are in favor of reform.
For quite some time, people would say Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was the guarantor for change — but wrongly so, said Saudi civil rights activist Yahya Assiri, who lives in England. There are no reforms, even if there has been some movement, she said, adding that it is mainly propaganda aimed at improving the image of the kingdom. Releasing and listening to Saudi dissidents and activists would be a first step, but that is not happening, she said.
Young women are not sufficiently protected from their families, Assiri explained. The state should provide protection, but if it doesn't, women are forced to choose a different path, she said — such as fleeing abroad. "Even then, the state will not help them; instead it tries to bring them back to Saudi Arabia."
Often enough, Saudi Arabia is a step ahead of the human rights organizations and the countries where the women take refuge, Assiri said, explaining that Saudi Arabia used its money, its influence and contacts to make sure Alqunun was detained.
Escape route matters
The women are more or less left to their own devices. Their chances of escaping depend to a large extent on the chosen route, Adam Coogle said. Some of the women who managed to enter a country with a well-developed asylum system, such as a European country or the USA, were successful, he said, while some of the women who tried to escape to Australia were intercepted in the countries where Saudi Arabia can exert diplomatic pressure.
