How Can A Diplomat From Saudi Arabia Rape? How Indeed!

NEW DELHI: The embassy of Saudi Arabia in New Delhi is contesting the claims of the two traumatised Nepalese domestic help of being confined, raped, assaulted, sodomised by a senior diplomat of the mission along with his ‘friends’ who probably were colleagues from work too. No how could a diplomat from a country that is the citadel of religion be even remotely guilty of such a crime, seems to be the missions attitude reflected in its categorical denial of the girls allegations.

How indeed?

After all in Saudi Arabia sex outside marriage is strictly prohibited. And punishable, Besides women are not allowed to step out of their homes without the burqa where even their eyes are not visible. Why, in Riyadh they even have a shopping mall where single men are not allowed. This logic only the Royal Family of Saud can explain, but yes the government does all it can to ensure that their men do not mix with the women who are curtailed by law from being too independent, a synonym for being enticing, alluring, even sexy!

A colleague in Medina was witness to his first encounter, albeit from a distance, about Saudi Arabia s ‘concern’ for its women. It was a blazing hot afternoon. And he was surprised to find a woman sitting in the open section of a pick up van while the driver sat alone in the air-conditioned cabin. Why is she not sitting inside, he asked his driver. Because he is not a relative of course, said the man. So obviously by law she could not sit next to him lest they be attracted to each other and violate the law.

Women have only now been given voting rights, as a major favour by the ruling Family that is being propagated as a major concession. A favour perhaps? Women in Saudi Arabia live under a strict male guardianship system, where they are not empowered to take their own decisions, to travel, to marry, to divorce, to work without the permission from the guardian. There have been any number of instances that have come to light, and clearly many more that have not because of the iron control exercised by the men in this society, of this guardianship creating havoc in a womans life. Particularly when it comes to travel, work and more than that marriage and divorce.

Well known Saudi activist Al-Huwaider has compared male guardianship to slavery. She has written, “the ownership of a woman is passed from one man to another. Ownership of the woman is passed from the father or the brother to another man, the husband. The woman is merely a piece of merchandise, which is passed over to someone else—her guardian .”

The Economist points out that in a rare 2006 Saudi government poll found that over 80% of Saudi women do not think women should drive or should work with men. However, this is directly contradicted by a 2007 Gallup poll which found that 66% of Saudi women and 55% of Saudi men agreed that women should be allowed to drive. Moreover, that same poll found that more than 8 in 10 Saudi women (82%) and three-quarters of Saudi men (75%) agree that women should be allowed to hold any job for which they are qualified outside the home. However, there is evidence from local polls that the older women support these restrictions, although now the number of girl students in Saudi Universities has increased dramatically. And is probably the factor behind the decisions recently to allow the women to drive, and to vote.

The male guardianship system is so rigid that the victim of a gang rape was given a punishment of 200 lashes as she was travelling with a girl friend without a male guardian. This was in March this year when a Saudi Arabian court sentenced her to 200 lashes and six months in jail.

In a legal system heavily against the woman, another woman was sentenced to 70 lashes for insulting a man on WhatsApp. She was charged a hefty fine as well by the courts.

So sex has been pushed indoors, as the Saudi diplomat has so well demonstrated in New Delhi while the Royal Family convinces itself that it has managed to deprive its population of this freedom. Except of course for the married couples but who are stoned and sentenced every now and again for adultery. When caught, of course.

This writer was witness to a bunch of Saudi tourists walking down Connaught Place in New Delhi in Arab gear, and lifting up their robes whenever they passed a group of girls or women, laughing hysterically and clearly enjoying the freedom that they had been denied in a most perverse, vulgar fashion.

Sex and alcohol are both taboo in Saudi Arabia, and both available in good measure. A British male traveller recorded his experience in that country, where he was approached any number of times by men for sex. Sodomy too is prohibited in Saudi Arabia but clearly not enough to prevent local Arabs from soliciting foreigners. The internet is full of videos, articles, travelogues that confirm the Saudi Arab man’s interest in sex, that is perverse in that it cannot be voiced, it prevents straight decent relationships, and where trips abroad---ask the drivers in London where the Saudis have bought streets and high end establishments----have a surfeit of both.

Saudi Arabia, as the unquestioning ally of the US and Israel in the region, has been spared the propaganda that was unleashed to justify the invasion of Iraq, Libya and the attack on Syria. Women in most other Arab nations are empowered, and share an equal status with men. The two countries that were attacked by the US and its allies, with the help of Saudi Arabia---Iraq and Syria have given all rights to their women who are not in burkha but stand along with the men in top jobs and enjoy equal rights.

Hyderabad has become a destination of Arabs from oil rich countries, that means essentially the Gulf including Saudi Arabia, UAE with so called “sheikhs” arriving to buy young Muslim girls, virgins and minors, for money. Many of them are treated like sex slaves, passed on from ‘sheikh’ to ‘sheikh’ in what is covered under the fig leaf of a marriage document but is human trafficking at its worst. Several such cases have come to light during the last decade or so but the practice has not stopped. In several instances, the sheikhs have performed the nikah ceremony, taken the girl---really children---away to a hotel for a few days and then left the country with the devastated child and her family left without any recourse to the law.

In the current case in which the Saudi diplomat allegedly raped the two Nepalese women working in his house for over six months, the Indian government can do litte as per the diplomatic immunity laws than to declare him persona non grata so that he is deported immediately by his embassy that remains in denial mode. Indian diplomatic sources said that despite the justifiable pressure there is no law under which the diplomat can be arrested and tried here.