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

@Quaagars I don’t believe there is a dress code at Abu Dhabi airport. I’ve been there many times in transit and I’m sure the air on will be up really high so no one would wear anything inappropriate.

Can you imagine being on the plane and someone coming on board and telling you to get off if you are female.
Fucking awful.

I know. They must have been terrified. And they weren’t even told what they were being “examined” for.

“Their country, their rules” is a sound principle, but does not fit this context. Doha is a regional transport hub; most passengers stay airside when they connect from an incoming to an outgoing flight; they do not cross a border or enter Qatar.

I don’t have experience travelling between Europe and Australia, but I do have experience travelling between southern Africa and western Europe and the US east coast. Even pre -COVID, airlines will and do routinely reroute passengers through airside connections. In real life, you don’t have the chance to say “let me think about it” and go off to research Qatari law. If you say no to the offered rerouting, you almost always forfeit your flight and have to make and pay for your own alternative arrangements. Even with the laws that protect customers in/from the EU and North America, this is true - but the majority of the world is not protected by those laws.

It does suck if people are talking about this only because it happened to Austailian women, who had the opportunity to speak out. But it doesn’t suck that people are talking about it. If these Australian women and the Australian government and media can get people talking about this - and they have- then I say go, Australia!

It seems that the Qatari authorities have promised a response by the end of this week, so perhaps we’ll all know more then.

But it doesn’t suck that people are talking about it. If these Australian women and the Australian government and media can get people talking about this - and they have- then I say go, Australia!

Exactly, bloody good on them for speaking out.
As you say as well, how on earth do you get a say if you're just literally passing through a country on way to another one?
I mean, I'd never set foot in some countries due to the way they treat women.
If I had to pass through in order to get to say Australia or New Zealand though, does that mean I never can visit them countries either just in case?

“Their country, their rules” is a sound principle, but does not fit this context. Doha is a regional transport hub; most passengers stay airside when they connect from an incoming to an outgoing flight; they do not cross a border or enter Qatar.

I'm afraid the grim practical reality, the "realpolitik", is that it does "fit".. the reality is once you touch down in a country anywhere in the world you are vulnerable to the whim of those whose enforce the local rules. Whether you actually fill in the forms to enter the country or hope to remain in a terminal airside is irrelevant.....

That's something that perhaps needs to be remembered in the future, once other options for getting to Australia and elsewhere become available again.

Wil never fly Qatar air again but until now it had the reputation of having newish planes, reasonable fares and good times between Australia and Europe. As previous posters have said there are many Australians unable to get flights home at the moment. Tens of thousands who have run out of money and cannot get on a flight. Our government is moving at glacial speed to assist them.
It must have been hard for these women to go straight to hotel quarantine, but our ability to quarantine all international arrivals is what has kept our COVID infection and death rates so low. The discomfort of quarantine to keep a whole nation safe is not comparable with the trauma of being sexually assaulted by airport authorities.

@NewlyGranny

Is it really beyond the empathetic capacity of a few folk here to consider the plight of the newborn, it's desperate mother AND the unconnected women ordered off a flight and sexually assaulted without explanation or opportunity to consent or refuse?

Surely it's obvious that all of these individuals are the victims of a callous and misogynistic regime? Why is that so hard to grasp and where does the compulsion to play either/or, as if compassion is a zero sum game, come from?

As for suggesting that women who are in transit through a foreign country have unknowingly signed up to every atrocity that might be visited on them and ought to have known better, that's victim blaming: simple but not pure.

I will not be giving the oxygen of attention to any further such ridiculous assertions. Others will make their own decisions.

Thank you.

I only hope the Australian goverment is able to force a proper enquiry. Historically other countries put trade with Qatar over humanities;
Adam Jones - UK boy abducted by his deceased Qatari fathers family and forced to remain in Qatar
Villagio Fire- 19 people killed including 13 expatriate children and 4 staff in an malls unlicensed nursery that did not have fire exits - owners were untouchable family and not prosecuted.
Lauren Patterson - 24yr old British Teacher , raped, killed and burnt in the desert by 2 Qatari nationals. Lauren's mother has made countless appeals for justice.

It is alleged that one of the ruling family members beat his wifes driver to death and ordered staff to kill rival teammates in a car race in the United States.

And these are the cases that make the press -
The embassies of migrant labour workers and domestic staff rarely intervene with Qatar who provide a revenue stream to their countries. From time to time gross abuse has lead to temporary bans by the likes of Phillipines on migrant labour to Qatar but they are quickly overturned.
Ironically Qatar has a slavery museum. I can assure you people are still trafficked to the country.
They have an agency to arrange the employment in their country
They work for months of not years to pay back the agency fee and flight.
Employers may pay an agency fee also and the employee is also forced to work to pay this debt.
Passports are confiscated. The worker, particularly domestic staff, often works without a day off ever and are never free to leave the employers house or labour camp.
Then some women get pregnant from abuse from employers, their family or the driver or gardener and they have no escape.
The sponsoring family may dump them at the airport or embassy or the poor woman gives birth on her own and faces imprisonment.
Out of desperation some of these babies are smothered, buried and even drowned in washing machines.
Even if the woman gets to the safety of an embassy shelter she is still at the mercy of the sponsor to allow her to leave the country. So there are women and children who have are within those walls for years and years.

@habibihabibi

I only hope the Australian goverment is able to force a proper enquiry. Historically other countries put trade with Qatar over humanities; Adam Jones - UK boy abducted by his deceased Qatari fathers family and forced to remain in Qatar Villagio Fire- 19 people killed including 13 expatriate children and 4 staff in an malls unlicensed nursery that did not have fire exits - owners were untouchable family and not prosecuted. Lauren Patterson - 24yr old British Teacher , raped, killed and burnt in the desert by 2 Qatari nationals. Lauren's mother has made countless appeals for justice.

It is alleged that one of the ruling family members beat his wifes driver to death and ordered staff to kill rival teammates in a car race in the United States.

And these are the cases that make the press -
The embassies of migrant labour workers and domestic staff rarely intervene with Qatar who provide a revenue stream to their countries. From time to time gross abuse has lead to temporary bans by the likes of Phillipines on migrant labour to Qatar but they are quickly overturned.
Ironically Qatar has a slavery museum. I can assure you people are still trafficked to the country.
They have an agency to arrange the employment in their country
They work for months of not years to pay back the agency fee and flight.
Employers may pay an agency fee also and the employee is also forced to work to pay this debt.
Passports are confiscated. The worker, particularly domestic staff, often works without a day off ever and are never free to leave the employers house or labour camp.
Then some women get pregnant from abuse from employers, their family or the driver or gardener and they have no escape.
The sponsoring family may dump them at the airport or embassy or the poor woman gives birth on her own and faces imprisonment.
Out of desperation some of these babies are smothered, buried and even drowned in washing machines.
Even if the woman gets to the safety of an embassy shelter she is still at the mercy of the sponsor to allow her to leave the country. So there are women and children who have are within those walls for years and years.

It’s like this all over the Gulf countries, sadly. Remember when a Filipina maid was found dead in a freezer in Kuwait? Then Duterte did something decent for once and forced Kuwait to sign a deal to give them more rights (but only, it should be said, for those from the Philippines).

Oh, and then that Kuwaiti beauty blogger was recording herself complaining about giving her maid a day off, which was now mandatory under the new regulations.

It’s a problem all over the GCC, but the West still cozies up to these awful regimes.

It’s a problem all over the GCC, but the West still cozies up to these awful regimes.
So true, Qatar supplies over 50% of the UK's gas needs. Energy before humans.

[quote SoloMummy]@Ginger1982
Ultimately, if you go to a country with a different moral and judicial code, you accept that their rules are what you are subject to.
It's an awful experience for the travellers, but I can't get het up over it. Its their country, their rules.[/quote]
Their rules to forcibly internally examine women to see if they recently gave birth? Who signs up for that travelling through there? Who even knows that that is a 'thing' there? Have a word with yourself. Honestly 🙄

We had to change plans in Oman back in February and they refused to believe that it was my titanium hip that had set the alarm off at security even though I showed them the letter from my surgeon. I was taken to a private room and had to show them my scar! Not quite an invasive examination but still not pleasant. The tour manager insisted she had never heard of this before but I found it hard to believe her given the average age of people on group tours.

Especially as these are returning Australians who have no other choice but to travel with this airline, via this route, because there is no alternative currently. They “signed up” for the only possible flight home, and they got this. It’s not like they could say “I’ll just choose to fly with a more woman-friendly airline, transiting through a more woman-friendly country, you know, like Singapore Airlines. I only have to wait two or three more fucking years for that.”

It's interesting to note that identification by bodily sex (rather than internal feelings) is important and recognised in some contexts isn't it?

This is such a disgustingly inhumane thing to have happened, those women must have been terrified. It's horrific. And to those posters somehow justifying this, jesus, you are beneath contempt.

This is so dehumanising.... and some of the comments upthread, seriously worrying. It doesn’t matter where you are in the world, you have a right to basic human rights and that includes not being internally examined against your will, to check you’ve not recently given birth because you happen to be a woman in that airport at that time. FFS.

@NewlyGranny

Is it really beyond the empathetic capacity of a few folk here to consider the plight of the newborn, it's desperate mother AND the unconnected women ordered off a flight and sexually assaulted without explanation or opportunity to consent or refuse?

Surely it's obvious that all of these individuals are the victims of a callous and misogynistic regime? Why is that so hard to grasp and where does the compulsion to play either/or, as if compassion is a zero sum game, come from?

As for suggesting that women who are in transit through a foreign country have unknowingly signed up to every atrocity that might be visited on them and ought to have known better, that's victim blaming: simple but not pure.

I will not be giving the oxygen of attention to any further such ridiculous assertions. Others will make their own decisions.

All of this.

Water Airways have apologised for their actions. Apparently women from ten flights were affected.

Qatar Airways !

TEN FLIGHTS!

Fuck me

(Would have been bad with just the one obviously...even if it was just one woman)

Remember it will presumably have been all females of childbearing age so may well have involved really quite young girls.

Also not all young women will have had smears etc so may not have had anything inside them before this incident.

If these women didn’t identify as women that day, would they have been exempt?

You can change the marker on your passport I believe with no trouble so that might help.

I do wonder how women who look like women but have m in passport would get treated. I suspect they would have been pulled off the flight as well and then that would be much worse than what happened to the women with an F.

Also any transwoman who didn't get pulled off the flight despite having an F could be pretty annoyed.

That's a side note obviously. This action was based on SEX though not gender.

The that sex is irrelevant is just fucking ludicrous. I mean at this shit right here.

Newspeak:
A person abandoned a newborn baby at the airport and some people were taken from flights and searched in the hunt for the person who abandoned the baby.

Yeah the new method will in no way diminish the ability of women to identify and speak out about things that affect us.