Children born to Saudi fathers and foreign mothers living abroad can integrate into Saudi society through programs developed by the Society for the Welfare of Saudi Families Abroad (Awasir), said Dr. Ali Al-Hinaki, an adviser at the society. Al-Hinaki said the organization has signed several agreements with ministries of health and education and civil societies to enable these children to get their full rights. He said there are 598 Saudi families abandoned by their Saudi fathers consisting of 1,823 Saudis, a rate of more than four people in each family. He said these families are living in a number of countries, notably Syria, Yemen, Egypt, Morocco, Bahrain, Indonesia and the Philippines and indicated that the major reasons behind their staying in these countries are the father's death, illness, imprisonment, absence or carelessness and negligence. Dr. Al-Hinaki said the real motive of some foreign wives is to get Saudi nationality, not to set up of a stable marital life. He said the foreign marriages are not an absolute evil because many of them are successful, especially among people suffering from physical and congenital deformities. For purely humanitarian reasons, he said, the Ministry of Interior grants this group permission to marry foreign women and vice versa, and sometimes considers the circumstances of men married to women who cannot have children and men whose wives have died. Dr. Al-Hinaki said the problem of these families lies in marriages made without official consent, which results in situations such as the separation of children from their fathers and breadwinners. He said the current system governing the marriage of Saudis to foreign women – made 30 years ago – needs to be updated. Dr. Al-Hinaki said some unofficial marriages involve men in their 40s and 50s, are preyed on by marriage brokers abroad who look for them at airports, hotels, coffee shops and on the streets. He said brokers swindle these men by arranging for them to marry beautiful women, but after the marriage, the men discover that the woman is terribly sick or married to another man. In most cases the women have been found to be prostitutes and exotic dancers. He said Awasir is conducting a field study to limit marriage from abroad and pointed out that the study is linked to the high rate of spinsters in the Kingdom. He said the marriage of some Saudi youths to non-Muslim women puts the national and religious identity of the born children at stake. He said that in some cases, the fathers cannot control their children, who lose their identity and religion. He called upon young men who are planning to marry foreign women to consider all these issues. He also urged the Saudis to seek the help of their embassies in these countries in case of any trouble in this regard. Meanwhile, Saudi women working as social researchers said marriages to foreign women can result in several social and family tragedies. Dr. Maisoun Al-Dakheel, a social researcher and writer, said marriage to foreign women is not rejected if it is officially documented and husbands bear the marital obligations, but it can become a catastrophe and the children will be the victims. She said most studies on the impact of foreign marriages showed that married Saudi men who look for a foreign woman just to enjoy themselves can create several dangerous consequences, foremost of which is family violence. Almass Al-Hajan, the head of the consultative panel at the Shaqayiq Society in Jeddah, said there is nothing wrong with foreign marriages if the husbands abide by the teachings and rules of the Islamic Shariah governing marriage. Despite this, she sees that marriage to a foreign woman has a negative impact on the Saudi society, as it is directly responsible for the increase of spinsterhood in the Kingdom. It also upsets the country's demographic structure and also can have negative social effects because some children will be in conflict between the traditions of their fathers and mothers. She said some young men fall in love with foreign women and marry them without thinking of the consequences, which can be worse if they have children. “If problems start and they aggravate no option is left than to separate,” she said.
