Saudi Gazette report RIYADH — The women's prison in Riyadh's Malaz district has many inmates imprisoned for failure to pay back debts and other financial liabilities. Al-Riyadh daily visited the inmates and wrote of their plights. Najla, 30, got married before her 20th birthday to an abusive addict. For months on end, Najla would seek refuge in her mother's house, until the latter passed away. “When I sought help from my father, he said, ‘If you want to die, die. There are plenty of graveyards'.” She then sought refuge with her siblings, but each time she'd get kicked out by their spouses. “I filed for an annulment, but the judge changed the case into a divorce one and I had to pay back the dowry.” Najla returned to her father, pleading with him to take her and her 13-year-old daughter in, but he refused. “One day I woke up with a crazy scheme,” she said, one that she thought would solve her problems. She headed over to the bank and asked for a credit card for her father, who she said was ill. “The bank asked me to get my father to sign the forms, so I forged his signature and transferred SR1.2 million to my account. “I divorced my husband and bought a house for myself and my daughter.” She said that she never thought her father would have her arrested and taken to prison. But take her to prison he did, and she has been languishing there for the past 18 months, her daughter taken in by social services. Monira and Salma are two other inmates. They used to work as nurses and borrowed large sums of money to pay debts and get their siblings off married. “I was forced to borrow SR30,000 with an extra interest of SR45,000 to pay for my sister's marriage and pay the rent of two houses,” Monira said. The houses shelter her three siblings, ill husband, five children and ill father. “I couldn't pay the debts off in time. They came and arrested me at work like I was some sort of criminal.” Salma, on the other hand, borrowed to spend on her house, son, ill mother and orphaned siblings. Failing to clear the SR40,000 debt in time, she was imprisoned. “I have been helping people, working as a nurse for 18 years. In my time of need, nobody helped me, nobody.” Saliha, imprisoned for a debt of SR120,000, also used to work at a hospital. “I support my five children, two of them diabetic, and my mother, who suffers from kidney failure.” When the time came to pay the rent, Saliha borrowed from three individuals a total SR45,000. With interest, the debt ballooned to SR120,000. Nora, who has been imprisoned for five months, borrowed SR2.6 million to pay off the mortgage on the house that accommodates her, her four sisters, their children and her 90-year-old father. Nora managed to pay off the mortgage, but could not pay off her loan. The house was taken away and her sisters and their children, 23 people in total, now all live on one floor in extreme poverty while she languishes behind bars. Randa, a 66-year-old inmate, fell half a million riyals into debt. The judge froze all of her governmental services, including her ID card renewal. She turned herself in, rather than “being imprisoned outside of prison.” Nada came forward with an intriguing story. She had worked for 16 years as a warden at this same prison. She borrowed to buy her son a car, at a high interest rate saw her debt rise to SR400,000. For a while, Nada lived with her aunt in a shanty house but her SR5,000 salary was not enough to clear the debt. Her sons now live alone.
