Women at Doha airport were removed from flights and forced to undergo invasive internal inspection in an ambulance on the tarmac

[ReplacementPlasticUterus]

I can't quite believe this.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-54682565

@OvaHere

I find it unbelievable anyone is defending this state sanctioned sexual assault of multiple women. I hope the AUS government take action over this. Just appalling.

I don’t. There are victim blamers all over MN. She knew the rules, what did she expect. She went back to his house, what did she expect. She was out alone at night, what did she expect. She had a second child with him, what did she expect.

I've just been having a look on Twitter, and the sheer level of misogyny on there is frankly depressing. Comment after comment (mainly from men) basically saying 'what were they (the authorities) supposed to do? Someone left a BABY in the toilets'.

I despair, I really do.

Sometimes these days I swear some people just say outrageous things for the "fun" of it " to enjoy causing an argument
Says rather a lot about them

Twitter is a misogynist shitpit, that's its USP.

@JamieLeeCurtains

Twitter is a misogynist shitpit, that's its USP.

True.

I don’t. There are victim blamers all over MN. She knew the rules, what did she expect. She went back to his house, what did she expect. She was out alone at night, what did she expect. She had a second child with him, what did she expect

Wheres the dad huh...frantically calling police stations reporting his missing pregnant wife is he?

Calling the papers to photograph him standing worried beside the baby's incubator....

Perhaps he's set up a crowd funder so he by all the stuff and bring his baby back home..

Its all her fault isn't it no one knows what happened to her and why she felt she had no option but to leave the baby and hope to God its found.

She didn't make it herself shes probably a victim in all too.

I hope she is safe and being taken care of.

Reminds me a bit of the story if all those fanatics who tried to prevent a child from accessing an abortion. She was only 10 or something stupid. Always about smearing the woman or girl. None of the other adults around her have any responsibility whatsoever. None want to look after the babies either and sure as hell aren't queuing up to pay the medical bills...

But as long as we can blame the victim and accuse her of all sorts ....

I wonder if the airline staff had even been asked whether anyone on the flight was known to be pregnant, if they were apologetic about it all and had no idea what was going on.

Why was it assumed by the police or whoever it was that the woman who had abandoned the baby must have been on that flight, though? It seems perverse, as well as unlikely. And certain to cause in international incident of some kind.

Yep. Exactly.

Start asking questions like that (where’s the loving husband and father) and it becomes clearer and clearer just why a woman may decide to leave her baby in a bathroom. Everyone calling her names, ask yourself what it would take for you to leave your newborn in an airport toilet. A lot I’ll bet. Might give you some insight into what sort of situation this woman/girl was in.

@Smallsteps88

Yep. Exactly.

Start asking questions like that (where’s the loving husband and father) and it becomes clearer and clearer just why a woman may decide to leave her baby in a bathroom. Everyone calling her names, ask yourself what it would take for you to leave your newborn in an airport toilet. A lot I’ll bet. Might give you some insight into what sort of situation this woman/girl was in.

This exactly. The poor thing must have been terrified. When I think of the agony I was in during my labours, I actually thought I was going to die, and at some points would have been quite willing to die if it would have stopped the pain. Imagine going through that silently and alone!

As if its not bad enough in England . With decent pregnancy and post natal care lacking unless you can afford to go private.

We only have to go so far as Ireland to here of women being left to die because an non-viable pregnancy still has its heart beating, or being threatened with prison for ordering abortion pills off the Internet

Even drs and pharmacists can turn patients away of they need an abortion or the MAP.

And thats all in.priveliged western countries where we are supposed to have some rights at least .

If its possible to be that difficult here then I dread to think what its like there.

I wonder if the airline staff had even been asked whether anyone on the flight was known to be pregnant, if they were apologetic about it all and had no idea what was going on.

I'm not sure what you are asking, but if it is with regard to the Cabin Crew then I suspect the crew of any inbound flight(s) that brought these ladies into Doha will have gone onwards on other duties or gone home before the assaults began. The fresh crew of any flight going onto Aus will have had very little interaction with the passengers at that stage

Why was it assumed by the police or whoever it was that the woman who had abandoned the baby must have been on that flight, though?

Did they do that or do we have reports that female passengers on other flights were also assaulted?

Do we know if any of the airport staff or airline staff were subjected to the same assaults? Presumably the airline staff weren’t because they didn’t know what had happened. So there will have been a reason why they didn’t do it to the airline staff. Would that reason be that the airline would object and cause legal issues but they could get away with doing it to passengers?

In 2011 , a Filipina domestic worker was raped by her employer in Qatar, sent home pregnant and gave birth in the plane toilet on route to Manila and put the baby in the bin to avoid the shame of the pregnancy with her family.
I would predict the recent scenario was similar.
Having volunteered a shelter in the Qatar, it is horrifyingly common for women to be abused (especially household staff) fall pregnant which is somehow their crime legally and they are unable to abort .
Imagine having to face family and possibly a husband at home with a baby who was conceived by rape. The mother couldn't board the plane with the baby or surrender to ground staff as she would be put in prison.

I bet many women were examined at the airport (passengers as well as staff) but only the Australians have had the courage to report.

@habibihabibi fuck!

This needs more attention on SM

t's quite clear from this that some posters have no real idea of what it has been like in the last few months trying to get to and from |Australia. Here is an extract from a message I had from a friend -

"UK Gov told people to get home we brought our return flight forward. Then Emirates grounded their fleet, so our flights were cancelled. Hong Kong and Singapore also closed their hubs, so we bought tickets with Qantas to fly back via Perth. Qantas grounded their fleet – more cancelled flights. Eventually, despite numerous computer glitches we managed to buy tickets with Qatar Airways."

I don't suppose she and her DH would have come home at all if she'd thought she would be subjected to a sexual assault.

Obviously travel at the moment has its own very particular problems and avoiding certain airports will be nigh on impossible.. However, when things return to as normal as they are going to be , avoiding hubs like Doha should be a no brainer.

So upset by this. Not much more I can add

notimagain
"I wonder if the airline staff had even been asked whether anyone on the flight was known to be pregnant, if they were apologetic about it all and had no idea what was going on."

I'm not sure what you are asking, but if it is with regard to the Cabin Crew then I suspect the crew of any inbound flight(s) that brought these ladies into Doha will have gone onwards on other duties or gone home before the assaults began. The fresh crew of any flight going onto Aus will have had very little interaction with the passengers at that stage

If there were a medical certificate for a pregnant passenger, my thought was that the passenger should be given special attention if she had any problem, so that would be among the briefing given to the fresh crew. (My daughter was a stewardess for Emirates and says I'm right about that: medical details with possible problems are made known to the flight crew so they can keep an eye on such passengers.) So they would have known about a pregnant passenger who was far enough along for a live baby to have survived being abandoned in a toilet, and also have noticed if she looked a bit off-colour, which I'd expect someone who'd recently given birth probably would.

I'd suggest the airport staff were very high-handed indeed with the airline crew, as well as inhumane and deserving of some sort of punishment for their treatment of completely innocent women.

If there were a medical certificate for a pregnant passenger

The problem, right there, is the "if", and crew members can't monitor something they don't know about...

Sadly from what I have seen over the years it's very rare but it's not unknown for passengers to conceal medical information. That can be down to dishonesty but it can also often be down to pure desperation in order to get on a flight, either to get somewhere or to get away from somewhere.

Thank you all who pointed out that the father of that child has been air-brushed out of the picture as is common in such cases. I forgot momentarily, even though one of my first realisations in feminist thinking was noticing how women, alone, seem to be held responsible for unintended pregnancies. As if they were parthenogenetic.

Horrendous

I've witnessed women being taken aside in Abu Dhabi and Kota Bahru airports. I was under the impression that it's the risk you run if your attire doesn't meet local standards
How is that even remotely the same to this scenario, though?
I'm not saying I agree with women being taken aside if they are for not meeting standards dress wise as I most certainly do not, but this is surely outright assault.

@ReplacementPlasticUterus

No words

Think you could be right though, how many people feel they can't speak up?
Thank goodness the Australian women were able to

@habibihabibi

Argh, don't know what happened there, my previous comment was to yours

If the cabin crew had been asked the question, they wouldn't have known nothing about what was going on, was my point. So it seems the question was not asked. So the airport authority was high handed at best, because it is a very obvious question to have asked before doing strip-searches of all the women on board.