MADINAH — A Saudi divorcee from Yanbu has urged local authorities to force her ex-husband to accept that a boy she gave birth to recently is his son. Um Mohammed told Dammam-based Alsharq newspaper on Sunday that she was willing for her son to undergo a DNA test to prove who the father was. Um Mohammed said: "My husband married me when I wasn't even 20. “Three months into the marriage I got pregnant and told him that he would soon be a father, hoping that he would be happy about the news. “On the contrary, he started beating, abusing and attacking me. “He also forced me to take medication and herbal medicines to help me miscarry. “He did this with the help of an Arab doctor in one of the health dispensaries in the region and forced me to take the medicines at gunpoint in a hotel room in front of his own brother.” She said one day he told her that she was divorced and showed her the divorce document attested by the court. “The document was dated a month earlier. During this time he was obtaining all his legitimate rights as a husband from me while I was actually divorced.” Um Mohammed said she went to stay with her family after the divorce but he soon called her to tell her that he was sorry and he wanted to take her back. "I went back to him, living in a hotel room for some time then in a furnished apartment. “He soon went back to his old habits of verbally and physically abusing me. “He accused me of adultery and threatened to publish the photos he took of us having sex if I did not abort the baby." Um Mohammed said after the second divorce she was able to escape to Yanbu, where she filed a complaint against her ex-husband, asking for justice. “I filed the same complaint at the office of the Human Rights Commission, which referred the case to the Bureau of Investigations and Public Prosecution (BIP). “The BIP said it would ask the man sign an undertaking to stay away from her. “I gave birth to my son Mohammed, who was born with a heart defect. He was also suffering from growth problems. “My son needs open-heart surgery and should be referred to King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh.” Director general of the maternity and children's hospital in Madinah Dr. Ali Al-Mohammadi wrote an official letter to the undersecretary of the Madinah governorate asking him to issue the baby with a Saudi identity so he could provide him with a bed in the hospital. Um Mohammed said: "The father refused to recognize his son. “Emir of Madinah Prince Faisal Bin Salman asked the governor of Yanbu to force the father to issue a birth certificate for his son, but this order was not yet implemented.” She said the treatment of her baby was being left in limbo because he does not have any identity papers. She accused local authorities of taking their time in implementing the emir's instructions. She also asked authorities to carry out a DNA test on the baby to confirm that her ex-husband was the father.
