Saudi sisters who fled from their families are granted asylum after months in Hong Kong

Two sisters from Saudi Arabia, who fled from their family while on holiday and Sri Lanka last September, were finally granted asylum in an unnamed third country on Monday. The development in their case comes after a months-long saga in which the women, who said they fled to escape an abusive family and restrictive society, hid out in Hong Kong and stayed in various safe houses out of fear they could be intercepted and forced to return home.

“Oh my God, I was so happy,” the younger sister told Reuters on Monday of hearing her visa had been approved. “I screamed ‘It’s real, it’s happening’ ... It was just relief and unforgettable.”

The siblings, who are 18 and 20 years old, told Reuters that they endured beatings and humiliation at the hands of their family members since they were young. The sisters also did not want to continue to live under Saudi Arabia’s guardianship system, which prevents women from working, traveling, marrying or getting some medical treatment without the consent of a male relative. Over the past several years, therefore, the sisters saved $5,000 in the hopes of building a life elsewhere, according to earlier news reports.

After the sisters successfully escaped from their family in Sri Lanka, they originally planned to travel to Australia to claim asylum. Their plan was foiled during a layover in Hong Kong, however, when Saudi officials attempted to seize the sisters’ travel documents, and they discovered that their connecting flight to Melbourne was canceled. Under Saudi law, women are required to receive approval from their male guardian to travel outside of the country or apply for a new passport; In November, the women learned that their passports had been canceled and they were stuck in Hong Kong.

Since the fall, the women have been in hiding, worried that their families or Saudi officials could find them and force them to return home. They were fearful that the Saudi Arabian government could prosecute them for renouncing Islam, a crime that is punishable by death under the country’s legal code. The sisters, therefore, have moved between 15 different safe houses, which included staying with a nun as well as a shelter for survivors of abuse, according to Reuters.

In recent years, a number of young Saudi women have made high-profile escapes from their home country. In January, 18-year-old Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun barricaded herself inside a room in a Bangkok airport hotel and opened a Twitter account to plea for her life. Shortly thereafter she was granted asylum in Canada. Experts told NPR that Alqunun’s success would likely “set off copycat scenarios” since she had provided a road map by which others could plan their journeys.

Over the last few months, the Saudi government has expanded its efforts to stop these escapes. On February 5, the Saudi General Department for Counter Extremism released an online video comparing women who flee the country to young men who join terrorist groups and blamed the trend on an international conspiracy set on destroying the kingdom’s image. Saudi activists living abroad told NPR that the government would likely go to ever-increasing lengths to prevent escapes and control the narrative about why women are driven to take such drastic action.