Abdulrahman Al-Maghrabi
Al-Madinah
Harassment is spreading like wildfire. We hear stories every day about harassers and their victims. The problem is that people nowadays speak about harassment as if it were something normal that has to happen in our society. We need to study harassment, its causes and its dangers, and put forward solutions.
Abdulrahman Al-Ghamdi, a Saudi columnist, recently wrote an article on the issue. In it, he said: “Harassers can be found everywhere. You find them in the workplace, on the street, etc., harassing women in broad daylight. They only care about satisfying their base instincts. What type of an environment did they grow up in? Why do they want to harass women? Is it something psychological or are there other factors involved? It is a dangerous practice. The first cause is a low level of religiosity and lack of knowledge of our religion.”
To me, harassment is a constant nightmare. It is only done by decadent people who will stoop to any level to satisfy their desires. How can we activate and enforce anti-harassment laws? We should not forget about that little, seven-year-old girl who was sexually harassed by a young man while she was returning home from school.
Statistics show that many cases of sexual harassment stay under the radar and are never reported to the police. The percentage of sexual harassment against Arab children has increased recently, and the problem is exasperating because we have failed to discover the causes and put forth solutions.
Some global statistics indicate that 70 percent of children around the world have been victims of sexual harassment at one point in their lives. A German report said that the percentage may be as much as 12 to 15 percent a year, that is 200,000 cases a year. In the Kingdom, some studies indicate that one in every four children has suffered sexual harassment.
The King Abdulaziz Center for National Dialogue recently conducted a survey on the issue and 91 percent of the respondents blamed low levels of religiosity for the increase in sexual harassment cases in society along with the absence of deterring penalties for harassers.
