Show me your friends -I'll tell you who you are- Saudi Arabia's secretive rehabilitation 'prisons' for disobedient women

[malaise]

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/may/28/saudi-arabia-women-girls-rehabilitation-prisons-dar-al-reaya

young woman wearing a black abaya is pictured in a city in north-west Saudi Arabia standing precariously on a second-floor window ledge. A second photograph shows a group of men escorting her down with the help of a crane.

The woman’s identity is unknown, but she was allegedly being held at one of Saudi Arabia’s notoriously secretive “jails” for women banished by their families or husbands for disobedience, extramarital sexual relations or being absent from home.

Conditions are reported to be so bad that there have been several cases of suicide or attempted suicide. The women can spend years locked up, unable to leave without the permission of their family or a male guardian.

“Every girl growing up in Saudi knows about Dar al-Reaya and how awful it is. It’s like hell. I tried to end my life when I found out I was going to be taken to one. I knew what happened to women there and thought ‘I can’t survive it’,” says one young Saudi woman who later managed to flee into exile.