In the kingdom, girls and women have an assigned male guardian who has say-so over their comings and goings. Usually that man is the female's father or husband. If a woman is widowed, the elder son inherits that duty. For some never-married or childless women, sometimes a distant cousin is that woman's "protector."
Of course Western women who marry Muslim men and then emigrate to Saudi Arabia are rarely aware that their new homeland poses this and other restrictions upon them.
According to an article in the latest Arab News, it looks like one American woman got smart, got out, and she took her two daughters with her.
Her Saudi husband became ill and needed to travel to the United States for treatment.
As the Arab News reports:
"On our way to the United States, we had a stopover in Amsterdam and at the airport my wife took off her Hijab and started to shout and curse me and my country. I tried to calm her down. I sneaked into the office of the Saudi Arabian Airlines to cancel my trip to the US because I knew that deep inside she wanted to desert me and take my children away from me," said the Saudi father.
She was able to escape.
More from the same article:
However, when he went to see his wife and children he was stopped by his father-in-law. The man had acquired a restraining order from the US authorities banning his son-in-law from coming to the house.
The Saudi tried to meet his family, and finally unable to do so returned to the Kingdom.
The father is very upset that his daughters have told him over the telephone to stop sending Qur'ans--the youngsters have converted to Christianity. Practicing that faith in Saudi Arabia is against the law.
Technorati tags: Islam Saudi Arabia Human Rights religion muslim women Christianity women's rights sharia شريعة السعودي الإسلام
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