On January 2017 the European Saudi Organization received some information about Amna’s case from trusted sources as the fear of any cruelly revenge actions from her family and from the official Saudi courts increases.
Amna AlJuaid is a young Saudi woman born on 26th of August 1990. She has faced Verbal and Physical violence from her parents because of her recent religious beliefs. Further, she was forced to quit university and marry hercousin,due to this sheran away from her parents’ house.
She knew that she cannot get her rights by sending her father and brother to justice courts as the national Saudi rules would not help her. It’s also possible that she would be sent to Girls Care House, a place where most Saudi women believe that it’s a type of jail for them, this is because they are not allowed to leave this place without their guardian’s acceptance.
Amna failed to travel outside Saudi Arabia. As when her father noticed her intention, he cruelly abused her and took her passport and forced her to stay in his house. This made Amna run away from her house and stay with one of her close relatives. Mohammad AlJuaid, Amna’s father contacted the police after she disappeared. He also gave the duty of finding her place to one of his friends, who followed many of Amna’s friends to find her place.
The European Saudi Human Rights organization are concerned about Amna’s life and destiny after her video was spread through the social media.
The Organization mentioned that Saudi Arabia has taken some steps to face violence against women. On 2013 Saudi placed a rule that criminalizes any type of family violence in the country. Further, on 2006 Saudi built a center in charge of fighting against any family violence and abuse.
However, the rules that was kept ignored some important cases such as, Sexual Harassment,Raping, and Imprisonment of freedoms.
Furthermore, the rule did not give the women the right to report any actions going on against her such as violence. The womenwould be guilty if she becamedependent and chose her place of stay.
Further, the Saudi Women also do not have the right to freely express any feelings and thoughts that would be against what her guardians believe.
The system acting against gender equity, making women dependent on men women ,has made it difficult for those whom have been violated and abused to get protected from any type of mistreatment they may face. Even though in some cases the women have the right to report any violation to the country’s police,it’s not guaranteed that she would get what she deserves and that her violators would be sentenced to jail. For example, on April 2017 Meriam AlOteebe was arrested after she left her house and reported that she has been violated.
The European Saudi Human Rights Organization encourages the Saudi Government to protect Amna AlJuaid from what might happen to her, as she mentioned that her parents would kill her!
The organization believes that the protection of Amna and punishing who violated her would be a positive action from the government. As several months ago, the Saudi government implemented a new rule of giving the women the right to drive. The organization also believes that the recent national rule against family violence do not really protects women such as in the case of Amna.