Saudi campaign urges women to report domestic violence

Alwaleed Philanthropies (AP), chaired by Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, has launched a two-week online awareness campaign against domestic violence in cooperation with the National Family Safety Program to highlight domestic violence and encourage battered and abused women to speak up.

The campaign highlights the negative role of a female’s silence in enabling her own abuse while also encouraging battered women to take action by reporting the abuse to the hotline 1919, which is a domestic abuse hotline that operates 24/7 offered by the Ministry of Social Affairs and run by trained Saudi women.

Domestic abuse can either be psychological or physical, as statistics indicate that psychological violence is more damaging than physical violence.

Deprivation of treatment, education or physical extortion are other types of abuse.

domestic abuse

Domestic violence can be caused by psychological illnesses or social pressure in one or both spouses.

Princess Lamia Bint Majed AlSaud, Secretary General at Alwaleed Philanthropies, said: “Female victims of domestic violence are often reluctant to speak up about their abuse because of their fear of scandal or the society’s disapproval. Our role as NGO’s is to educate women about their legal rights and remind the society that domestic violence is an illegal crime.”

Alwaleed Philanthropies has supported and joined numerous women empowerment campaigns such as “The International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women” on social media and the United Nation’s “OrangeTheWorld” initiative by lighting up the Kingdom Tower in orange for five days. The color orange was chosen as the official color to represent elimination of violence against women.

‘Wa’iyah’ female legal rights program aims at raising awareness of Saudi women’s legal rights to help end their subjection to violence while also certifying Saudi female lawyers.

Additionally, #Albyout_Asrar domestic violence awareness campaign advocated women and children’s rights while also highlighting the serious mental and physical problems that come as an outcome of domestic violence.