To never want to visit Qatar?

[RareLilacFinch]

The incessant full-page ads I’m getting on MN encouraging me to visit Qatar have got me thinking about why I’d never want to go there.

As a woman, there are obvious reasons - not wanting to be under the “guardianship” of my husband, and the forced gynaecological examinations of a plane full of Australian women being the tip of the iceberg - on top of the hideous human rights abuses of migrant workers, and the general suppression of free speech.

So AIBU - am I missing something?

No worries, I figured.

My health insurance was seperte but for some reason to register at the hospital of my choice, not medical centre I needed my husband there to sign the paperwork. Why would I lie? Same at Ooredoo. Maybe your husband is lucky as he presumably has a penis?

Thanks 😊

I don't really believe it but it is not worth arguing about. Why women want to move abroad and then sit in a compound and take taxis instead of driving and doing something is beyond me. No wonder they are so discontented. It's a foreign country, it has good and not so good stuff. It's not an evil place, it's just a place like any other. I love it here, but then I speak Arabic because I troubled myself to learn, drive because I popped to traffic and got a licence and have friends who are not British because I find the expat westerners so dull in general. Horses for courses, if you want to live in a foreign country, go there and immerse yourself. If you want to hate a foreign country, do some research first. Funny but in all the years I have been here, I have never heard a Qatari flag off the UK even though I know two families who have lost their children to rascist attacks while at uni. I don't get this one sided venom, why not aim it at the countries who are actively doing terrible things, I went to Thailand once and felt sick. The sex, the sleaze, the filth. I genuinely wonder why it is not dealt with and how people tolerate holidaying there. The middle aged men with 13 year old on their arm (always white men), the counterfeit, the sleaze. Why hate one little gulf state so much when you weren't even there? I think it's mainly because they are rich. It's snobbery.

Yanbu. Not ever on a list of places I want to visit

@BusterGonad

Even this link from a Qatari-based travel guide (current as of this month) confirms your experience that some banks will not allow a dependent spouse to open a bank account without their (presumed male) sponsor's approval.

https://marhaba.qa/opening-a-bank-account-in-qatar/

@TandyhatesAmanda Why do you think I am lying? I do not understand your thinking. Also, why do you think I spent my time sat in my compound doing nothing? You assume a lot. I did have a Qatari driving licence and we did have a car, one car, not two, hence why I took taxis as well. My husband usually used the car to get to work as I didn't always want to drive him to work, then home, then pick him up again and Tbh I found the driving style in Qatar quite Irritating, the biggest car rules the road etc. I didn't learn the language as I knew after a few months it wasn't for me. My husband worked his contract and we left. Your right about Thailand, it is also a problematic sexist hole. I wouldn't live there again either.

While those in bigger Australian cities have more options I’m in Adelaide so my only real options are Qatar, Emirates and Singapore Airlines. There’s Malaysia Airlines and China Southern but they both only have a few flights a week. We used to have Cathay pacific which were great but they haven’t returned since the pandemic. There are no Qantas international flights from Adelaide,

Yes, we asked at the time and the bank said it was because spouses would run off with the money and cause the bank huge issues. I'm not sure how true that is bit it's a good excuse I guess.

The ads keep freezing on mine - they come up and then don’t go away and the whole page freezes and I can’t scroll. Anyone have a solution to that? Driving me nuts. Just the Qatar ones.

@Fraaances try Privacy Badger ad blocker (it's free). I use it and i've never seen the Qatar ad.

This is a helpful link (PDF download), on the Word Banks findings re Women's legal rights (with particular focus on the workplace).

The second page of the PDF even provides direct citations for various legal restrictions on women (e.g. where precisely they are found in Qatari law).

It found that Qatari women have severely curtailed rights, even compared to most other Middle East and North African countries.

https://wbl.worldbank.org/content/dam/documents/wbl/2022/snapshots/Qatar.pdf

Not exactly the point but the Qatar ads on here pop up and block me from the whole screen and I can’t get out of the ad. I’m on an iPhone 15. It’s quite annoying.

Nope. I won’t fly with them, don’t care how cheap they are. Their forced examinations of several women from my country were, in fact, •sexual assaults* and I won’t pretend otherwise. It’s fucking sick and I will never consciously give that airline or that country my money.

Excellent airline, plus clean and efficient airport when I was there yesterday. However, a 90 minute stop over will be the only ever time I'm there.

I would go. It's important to keep and open mind and explore places that might make you uncomfortable. I have spent a lot of time in the middle east and learned a lot (good & bad).

I have spent time in Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Oman, Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Each one is a little different and there is a huge cultural divide - which I hopefully understand a bit better, having actually been there.

Don't fool yourselves on workers rights. The same goes on worldwide. America, whilst not nearly as bad is terrible in lots of other ways. Applying non western values and societal norms when you travel is a very British thing.

Well, personally I'd favour liberal democracies over theocratic dictatorships. Each to their own.

Oh, I think other cultures judge as well.

Years ago I transited through either Doha or Dubai. At that point they were into total sex apartheid. No women anywhere unless completely encased and part of the entourage of a male or two. So no women at all working there. So when I went to the women's room, there was a very embarrassed Indian-looking man cleaning sinks. I just about laughed out loud at the irony of sex apartheid creating a situation where men were in women's toilets. (And, yes, I've since always managed to find another route around the world through less psychotic societies.)

You do know that Doha and Dubai are in different countries?

in defence - dc became very ill on plane. qatar was where we were scheduled to change flights. took dc to see a dr at the airport. gave us medicine and good quality care. all free and taken direct from plane to dr in an ambulance. so many countries are problematic. where can you actually say is a place that upholds women's rights and isn't corrupt? not the UK for sure. this ME bashing seems a bit naive and/or western superiority complex. people need to open their eyes and worry about what is going on here first. and no I don't mean free clothes for politicians. it runs a lot deeper.

After what happened in Qatar, I have told my DH I will never transit through that whole region. I travel with a teen daughter and will not take her through there after that. I know it was a one off but the idea of that happening to her makes me ragey.

Every so often a post like this comes up with the overwhelming majority stating they would never visit Dubai or Qatar. Citing everything from weather, women’s rights, human rights, displays of wealth etc. If you don’t like a place don’t visit for whatever reason, no one is forcing you to. FWIW I’ve visited both and they were fine in their own ways, different than where I live but I expect that when I travel to new places. I’ve visited better and worse places. As an aside I’m always impressed that many posters say they’d never visit anywhere built and operating on slave labor - guess what Europe, North America and Australia were “built” on?

One of the places in the world I deem a sandy shithole and would never go.

Well, pretty much every country in the world has a history of slave labour and exploitation in myriad forms, the difference is most of them stopped some years ago while shitholes like these continue merrily.