Manama: Courts in Saudi Arabia last year looked into 3,422 cases of harassment, prostitution and khelwa (unlawful meeting between men and women), official statistics indicate.
Illicit relations topped the list with 2,050 cases followed by sexual harassment of women in public places with 969 lawsuits, according to the figures published by local Arabic daily Al Sharq on Monday.
The courts also dealt with 204 cases of “meetings for devious purposes” and 109 cases of prostitution throughout the kingdom, the daily said.
“These figures are worrying for a conservative society like ours,” Shaikh Saleh Bin Sa’ad Al Lihaidan, a legal consultant, said. “Our society is conservative to a large extent and the concepts of social values and ethics are deeply rooted. This high average could be attributed to the limited supervising by families,” he said, quoted by the daily.
