The abaya and the veil didn’t help. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has dropped the patriarchal theory of holding a woman fully responsible when she gets harassed. In the workplace and in the markets, there have been many utterances and actions that are incongruent with the image that the Saudis painted of themselves in their own minds: that they are an ideal society protected by years of forced separation of the sexes.
But all that didn’t work. Thousands of verbal and physical harassment cases are recorded with the police. Instances of harassment get documented on social media, thus angering the kingdom’s virtual community.

A video shot at a building’s entrance in Dammam shows a young man harassing a young girl waiting for the elevator. He lifts her school dress and touches her private parts, then enters the elevator with her. The disturbing video ends at this point, but without putting an end to the incident.

The girl didn’t scream or resist. It was a brutal, smooth and scary scene. The video went viral, Saudi Twitter users applied their usual pressure and the criminal was caught. He could be punished by several lashings and a short prison stay. The absence of a law that deters the crime has worsened the harassment phenomenon targeting women and girls.

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