Headline: ‘Saudi Arabia investigates video of men attacking orphaned women and girls: Video posted on social media Wednesday shows women being dragged by their hair and handcuffed’

The incident took place at the Social Education House in Saudi Arabia’s southwestern Asir region.

Social education houses are used as orphanages for women and girls who do not have families or husbands, victims of domestic violence, or for people expelled from their homes by male family members.

Question: How can adult women be classified as ‘orphans’ and placed in a ‘social education’ incarceration centre against their will–an institution meant for the sheltering and re-education of ‘orphans’? Along with legitimately orphaned girls?

Answer: Because women are not full humans or legal persons in Saudi Arabia. They are subject to the ‘guardianship’ or their closest male relative or husband their life long, and hold no independent autonomy or autonomous legal status. If said legal male guardians all have died, they are classified as orphans and institutionalized, as they can not live independently.

The incident took place at the Social Education House in Saudi Arabia’s southwestern Asir region. ‘Social education houses’ are used as orphanages for women and girls who do not have families with male relatives, or husbands. They are also used to house victims of domestic violence, or for people expelled from their homes by male family members–yet…