Why do girls run away from home? Who is to blame?

Girls who have run away from home told Arab News social pressures and family problems were to blame. Many of them said mistreatment from one or both parents, family pressures and the generation gap were other main causes that drove them to escape. S.N., a young girl from Jeddah, said the constant nagging and immense pressures from her own mother drove her to run away with a young man she had developed a relationship with over the telephone. “I got pregnant and the young man denied any knowledge of me to the police. I ended up in a girls protection home after my family refused to take me back,” she said. She said she thought all her problems would end the moment she ran away with the young man. “He promised me a good life. He painted a rosy future for us. I now deeply regret having known him and having run away from home,” she said. N.L., another Saudi girl, also fell into the same trap as S.N. when she developed a telephone relationship with a young man. “His nice talk encouraged me to run away with him. This feeling of wanting to escape was exacerbated by the continuous fighting between my father and mother,” she said. The girl said the young man refused to marry her, saying he could not trust her with his home and children. “I now deeply regret my actions but it is too late,” she said. M.Q., a 16-year-old Saudi girl, said she was forced to run away from home due to the bad treatment of her stepmother. She recalled soon after she escaped, she was kidnapped by 14 young men who took her to an apartment and repeatedly raped her. She said the young men dumped her near a telephone booth after they had finished with her. S.T., a young girl from Makkah, used to run away every time she craved drugs. She said all the family members were drug addicts and added that she would give her body to the first man she met on the street for drugs. “I would then go to a hospital and ask the family to come and pick me up. The family finally discovered my activities and dumped me in a girls protection home where I am now facing an uncertain future,” she said. B.M. said her poor family refused to take her back after she was divorced. “I stopped the first car on the street only to be bundled in and sexually assaulted by a group of men,” she said. She added that she was now living in a protection home and suffering from a number of diseases. Legal consultant Yahya Muhammad Al-Shahrani blamed generation clashes inside the home as one of the reasons causing girls to run away. “The parents are treating their sons and daughters the same way they themselves were treated more than 40 years ago,” he said. Al-Shahrani underlined the need for specialist social centers to provide psychological and social counseling to the parents and said most runaway cases he had witnessed during his work in this field were caused by maltreatment, family problems and lack of dialogue between children and parents. “The current generation of boys and girls do not have much respect for their parents, who they consider to be obsolete, old-fashioned and outdated,” he said. Al-Shahrani also said poverty was another reason driving girls to run away from home and look for someone who was willing to help them. He asked families to spread a culture of dialogue among their household members. “Parents should give their children freedom of speech and listen to them. The family should maintain its cohesion and not shy away from candid dialogue,” he said. The lawyer also said social problems inside the family including divorce, poverty and drug addiction were among the reasons encouraging girls to leave their homes. He saw the solution in the establishment of social counseling centers. Latifa Salman, a social worker, said girls seclude themselves in their rooms and live in an imaginary world through the telephone or the Internet. “They do not mix with the others and may finally find themselves leaving home,” she said. Latifa warned that when the girls were desperate, they would resort to escaping as a panacea to all their problems. “Social family problems such as poverty and divorce, peer pressure, and the desire to imitate Western cultures are among the causes why girls run away,” she said. She said a lack of proper control and disintegration of family ties are also reasons encouraging girls to run away from home. Latifa asked families to pay more attention to the problems of their children, especially teenagers, and not force their daughters to marry against their will. Sabah Zahhar, a social worker at a private hospital in Jeddah, said families should understand the essential needs of their girls and make efforts to satisfy them. “Children want to feel that they count. We must make them feel that they are respected and indispensable, otherwise they may look for these values outside,” she said. She said the social characteristics of potential runaways include low self-esteem, a weak personality and inability to face problems. Sabah urged families to treat their children equally, listen to them, stay away from verbal or physical violence and remain close to each other.