Opinions of Saturday, 4 April 2015

Columnist: Al-Hassan, Idris

Re: Amina's one-year hell in Saudi Arabia

Re: Abused, gang raped and left pregnant – Amina's one-year hell in Saudi Arabia

Lies lies and pure lies.

The article that appeared in Ghanaweb 3rd April 2015 unfortunately can never be true.

It is a duty on everyone to defend those accused wrongly. Even if they are your enemies.

The story that Amina was abused gang raped and left pregnant is either a concoction to spoil the name of the good people of Saudi Arabia by the media house or a wicked lie by perpetrated by Amina herself to hide her immoral life while in Saudi Arabia. It is well known that many girls and women in Saudi Arabia either flirt with their own Ghanaian, Nigerian or African community or try to seduce the men and boys of their Saudi employers. I have seen this myself. The Saudi’s have a dress code for all women – to dress decently before all male men who can marry you to avoid seductions; not like in other countries where decency has been thrown to the dogs, and a woman wear mini skirts and breast baring dresses to seduce men on the streets and even in places of warship even women who are grand mothers are not exempt from this immorality. Some of these Ghanaian women or girls who come with the aim of making money through flirting go ahead with this seductive this dress code even when with male members of the families they work for. No doubt the decent ones far outnumber the bad nuts, but it is a fact, and well known how some women while in Saudi, refuse to stick to their domestic service and instead use their days off to either stay with boy friends or openly flirt. Naturally when they get pregnant by these boys who do not want to take responsibilities they change the narrative on how they got pregnant. Blame rape!

Saudi Arabia is one of the few countries in the entire world where everybody feels secured. Except those who do not want to feel secured. To be raped as Amina claims, she must have willingly sent herself to her so called rappers. In Saudi All roads and streets within buildings have police patrol 24x7 and any fellow found at place at a wrong time will be taken and questioned. It is not possible that this girl served in a five story house all alone. NOT in any way possible! I do not argue if she claims she served in five-room apartment but not a five floor story. Saudi’s in general do not stay in five story apartments. It is either an apartment or two apartments used by one family, or a villa which is normally one story. When there is a five story apartment then this is a building rented by different families most of whom are foreigners and rarely take domestic servants. Almost all of these story buildings have care takers manily from Bangladesh or Pakistan and they invariably MEN. They do the cleaning of the building and clean the cars of the occupants and they are paid for it. Now there are instances where a building – story building is used illegally for prostitution, the authorities are always on the lookout and such buildings are demolished right away and those involved taken by the police. The salary she is talking about is just another lie. There is a big Ghanaian Community in Jeddah and Saudi Arabia, the majority of them doing the domestic service business. If there was any problem, she could have shared her plight with at least the few people she stayed with before being hired, and if they did not see her for a period of time they would have reported her case to the Embassy or Consulate. They will take up the story with the authorities.

I personally took charge of a woman who was damped in a government hospital by her Ghanaian lovers. These lovers faked that she was the wife of one of them. The good people in the hospital admitted them out of pity. They then escaped when they knew her situation was serious. Not that I was told the story, but I know those who did it and was tricked into helping them get the admission. She eventually died. This is an example of what happens among the Ghanaian and Nigerian communities. Like I said, not of all of them but a few bad nuts. There are instances of women who have delivered children who turn out not being the children of their husbands. They were not raped, they willingly flirted! The strictness of the Saudi government to family values is no secret to anybody. If this Amina really experienced this, the Saudi Embassy or Consulate would have taken the matter up and at least her employer will be investigated. Saudi’s have been punished and their acts published in the media for all to see. The Saudi government has even given guidelines for hiring domestic servants and if anyone got hired outside these guidelines she has herself to blame. Every domestic servant and in fact every Ghanaian has to be registered in the consulate or Embassy – not only Ghanaians but all nationals register in their various embassies or consulates. That said, I challenge Amina to mention who employer was and even now, the situation can still be investigated. Until that is done, I can confidently say that Amina got pregnant from her own immoral acts. She is not the first to get pregnant from flirting many have experienced this before her and have kept the names of the men secret because they know it was through their own immorality.

Thanks

i.alhasaan