When the actions of a few harm the many

As any reader of Sand Gets in My Eyes knows, I am a strong advocate for victims of domestic violence. I lived through an abusive first marriage and still have the scars to prove it. So when I read that some young women in Saudi are apparently taking advantage of a women's shelter in Jeddah as some sort of retreat from parental pressures, my blood started to boil.

There's no doubt in my mind that domestic violence is a huge issue in Saudi Arabia, altho, of course there are no hard statistics to back that up. No such numbers aren't kept in Saudi.

Still, the problem has gotten big enough - and obvious enough - in the last few years that people are starting to talk about it.

This is Sameera Al-Ghamdi, a psychologist and media coordinator at the Jeddah Psychiatric Hospital, on the issue:

"There are different kinds of abuse - physical, verbal and psychological. What we have noticed in our clinics is that perhaps there is less physical abuse now. Although some of the cases we see are severe, there is more awareness and refusal by women to accept physical abuse unlike before," she said.

The problem is that most men still think that they have the right to treat women as they wish and because of that attitude they will verbally and psychologically abuse their wives, daughters and even mothers by controlling them, degrading them, pressurizing them. And Al-Ghamdi considers all that as a form of abuse including not giving women their equal chance as men to hold high positions at work as long as they are qualified.

"It is not only the husbands who abuse their wives but you will also find that the families by refusing to side with their daughters and defend them, contrite to the cycle of abuse. Unfortunately, we still live in a society where traditions and culture play a major role, and I'm not asking that we abandon our traditions and culture, but we should review them and hold on to only those that agree with religion because Islam place women at high esteem," she said.

All this abuse that women endure is reflected in the children and as they grow older they tend to adopt the same attitude. "The boys will grow up to be abusive and the girls will either be submissive and weak or rebellious and aggressive. We already see a high rate of children with psychological disorders because of this lack of knowledge on the long-term effects of abuse toward women and the children themselves," said Al-Ghamdi. "What we need is social support and political support through stricter laws and if there is no punishment for the abuser the violence will not stop," she added.

In 2005, Saudi opened its first shelter for victims of domestic violence, and in 2007, the facility in Jeddah was opened. And just this month, the The Committee of Social Protection was established to address the issues of domestic violence, so there's promising movement in the right direction.

And that's what makes these latest accusations so devastating. If they are true - and it appears they are - then the credibility of all future victims of domestic violence has been greatly damaged. A shadow of doubt will be cast over every woman or girl who comes to the shelter from now on.

And because of that, many victims of domestic violence might just decide to put up with the abuse.