Women as Chattel in Saudi Arabia

If you're want to get caught up on the present state of U.S.-Saudi affairs -- Khashoggi, the blockade of Qatar, the teenage Saudi runaway Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun -- read Ed Wong's dispatches from yesterday, "A Blockade and a Murder: U.S. Faces Enduring Problems With Saudis," and today, "Pompeo Presses Saudi Crown Prince on War, Murder and Diplomatic Rifts."

One comes away with the distinct impression that the tail wags the dog. The Saudi-UAE blockade of Qatar will continue indefinitely, while the U.S. will backup whatever judicial charade the Saudis concoct to shield crown prince Mohammed bin Salman from justice in the Khashoggi assassination.

Pompeo has been touring the Middle East for the last week in an attempt to get the ducks in a row for a war on Iran, part of  which is getting the Saudis to halt combat in Yemen.

My question is when are the Democrats, who now control the House, going to reintroduce a war powers resolution?

A new problem has arisen for the Saudi-U.S. alliance in the wake of the Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun imbroglio, and that is the chattel status of women in the kingdom. As Wong summarizes,

Human rights abuses within Saudi Arabi are also under the international spotlight. On Sunday, The New York Times published an Op-Ed by Alia al-Houthlal, the sister of a women’s rights activist imprisoned in Riyadh, Loujain al-Houthlal, beseeching Mr. Pompeo to ask Prince Mohammed for the release of her sister.

Ms. Houthlal wrote that her sister had been tortured in prison, and that a close associate of the prince, Saud al-Qahtani, who has been implicated in the murder of Mr. Khashoggi, was present at several torture sessions.

Over the weekend, an 18-year-old Saudi woman who had fled the kingdom, Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun, arrived in Canada after being granted asylum by Ottawa.

She has talked of the plight of women in the Saudi Arabia and the oppressive system of male guardianship over women, despite Prince Mohammed’s support for some social reform policies.

"[O]ppresive male guardianship over women" is a polite way of saying chattel slavery.

The Times has been doing some good reporting on this issue. "Saudi Women, Tired of Restraints, Find Ways to Flee," by Richard Paddock and Ben Hubbard, doesn't pull any punches:

In 2017, Dina Ali Lasloom, 24, begged for help in a widely viewed online video after she was stopped while transiting in the Philippines. She was held at the airport until family members arrived and took her back to Saudi Arabia, where it is unclear what happened to her.

The women who make it out must contend not only with their families’ efforts to force them home, but also with the Saudi government’s extensive and well-financed efforts to do so, often involving local diplomats pressing for repatriation.

Women who are repatriated can face criminal charges of parental disobedience or harming the kingdom’s reputation.

“As Saudi women, we are still treated as property that belongs to the state,” said Moudi Aljohani, who moved to the United States as a student and has applied for asylum. “It doesn’t matter if the woman has any political views or not. They are going to go after her and forcibly return her.”

Reminds one of the antebellum Fugitive Slave Act in the United States 150 years ago and the Underground Railroad it spawned.