Jeddah, December 06: Men who harass women in public will be fined and publicly defamed under a new law being drafted by the Shoura Council. The action is due to huge public demand to end the phenomenon that humiliates women and even leads to traffic jams.
Shoura Council member Zain Al-Abideen Bin Barri urged “the council to follow the suit of countries like Kuwait and the UAE where similar laws have successfully deterred the unwelcome advances,” Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reported.
“Besides penalties, we’re going to consider imposing fines. The penalty of public defamation will deter public harassers,” he said.
The nuisance is widespread throughout the Kingdom particularly in blackspots such as Al-Elaya Street in Riyadh and Al-Tahliya Street in Jeddah. Many businesses are now losing customers who avoid malls out of fear of harassment.
The issue has become so bad that the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (the Hai’a) is considering opening branches inside malls to combat the negative phenomenon.
In a 2009 survey entitled “Harassment and Challenges Faced by Saudi Women Working with Men” that looked at some 1,000 Saudi women working in a wide range of fields, from medicine and education to banking and the media, 21 percent of women said they had been subjected to unsolicited forms of friendliness from their superiors, and 35 percent from work colleagues in similar, or lower, positions of seniority.
Unsolicited flirtatious comments formed the greater part of the complaints, while unwanted attention developed into requests for meetings outside the workplace in 28 percent of cases. Twenty-four percent of the women said they were contacted unnecessarily late at night, and 15 percent revealed that harassment had extended to physical contact.
The merest intimation of such behavior leaves women in testing circumstances. The women surveyed said that harassment led to them fearing unfair dismissal or threats to their reputations, or even fears that their families may find out about such inconveniences. They also felt that their failure to respond positively to unsolicited advances might affect their chances of earning pay-rises and promotion.
Courtesy: Saudi Gazette