A few years ago, I read a memoir that has stayed with me. It tells the story of Rahaf Mohammed, a young Saudi woman who, in 2019, made headlines for escaping state-endorsed family abuse in Saudi Arabia and live-tweeting her escape. The book impacted me not only because of the riveting events, which couldn’t have been imagined by the most creative Hollywood writer, but also because of Rahaf’s bravery and determination to seek freedom. I think about her story often—her resolve to seek a better life is nothing short of inspiring.
Rahaf executed an escape that could’ve cost her life. She wasn’t just escaping her family, she was renouncing Islam and fleeing an entire regime that is hell-bent on treating women worse than animals. A regime that endorsed and encouraged the abuse she was suffering, and that punishes dissenters like Rahaf with public decapitation using a sword.
Rahaf has said that women are treated like slaves in Saudi Arabia. In her memoir, she recalls that in school she was taught that women are “less than men and were created to obey them, care for them and provide them with sexual gratification.”
In describing her plight throughout the book, Rahaf explains that she was routinely brutally beaten by her family members. In one instance, she recalls that her brother “bashed [her] against the wall” for having received the gift of a guitar without permission. He later smashed the guitar on her head. Another time, he beat her up for having walked home alone: “By the time he was finished with me, I had a black eye and he had a clump of my hair in his hand.”
“Honor killings” are routinely carried out for women who’ve engaged in unauthorized sexual relations—even if against their will. Rahaf was sexually assaulted in a taxi once, and she writes that “the beast who did that to me knew he would get away with it because I would be found guilty of losing the family’s honor, and my life would be the price paid to restore that honor.”
Saudi Arabia’s ‘guardianship system’ grants male relatives total control over a woman’s life, commanding decisions about marriage, travel, work, and what she can study. Rahaf explains that her brother “had control over … what I should wear, what I should eat, where I go, who I can see and go out with.”
Women have no rights in Saudi Arabia. As Rahaf puts it, in Saudi “a woman is a nullity.” It’s hard to overstate the level of abuse, misogyny, and oppression that these women endure—all endorsed by the State. “I had to leave, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to live my own life,” explains Rahaf.
Thankfully, leave she did: she was granted asylum in Canada and now lives in freedom. Over 12 million other Saudi women can’t say the same.
Just as I think of Rahaf’s bravery often, I also think about those who enabled the evil that she endured; those who are intellectually and morally responsible for what she went through. Among them is an undeservingly cherished institution: the U.N.
The U.N., an organization that most people expect to stand up for human rights, has done nothing but prop up the Saudi regime, giving it a veneer of respectability on the international stage. Despite myriad human rights violations against women, Saudi Arabia remains a U.N. member in good standing, and it gets a voice and a vote within the organization, on par with rights-respecting nations.
The U.N. goes as far as to elevate Saudi Arabia’s treatment of women. Earlier this week, the Kingdom was appointed as chair of the U.N. Women’s Rights Commission. That is not a typo—Saudi Arabia, the regime that oppressed Rahaf and millions of other women as a matter of state policy, is in charge of monitoring the rights of women worldwide.
This is not the first time that the U.N. has propped up Saudi Arabia in this regard. In the past, this regime has been appointed to several entities and committees dedicated to protecting the very rights it denies. The U.N. has been providing moral cover for the Saudis by elevating the regime as alleged leaders in the respect of women’s rights.
Hillel Neuer, executive director of the human right group UN Watch, said of the designation of Saudi Arabia to the Women’s rights Commission: “It’s surreal. Electing Saudi Arabia to head the world body for protecting women’s rights is like putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank.”
Neuer’s analogy is apt, but Saudi Arabia’s designation is not surreal—it’s in keeping with the nature of the U.N., which has no concern for morality and turns a blind eye to brutal human rights abuses worldwide and whitewashes them.
The Saudis are not an outlier; they’re part of a broader pattern. As I’ve written in this column before, the U.N.’s founding principle of amoral neutrality puts all countries on equal footing, regardless of their respect or repudiation of individual rights. Barbaric abusers like Saudi Arabia or Venezuela get a seat at the table next to essentially free countries like the U.S. or Canada. This amoral approach makes the U.N. hand out leadership opportunities equally, as if countries who encourage “honor killings” were the same as those who guarantee equal rights for all individuals.
The U.N. is an enabler of Saudi Arabia’s crushing of women. It does so by providing them with moral cover and a seat at the table, by giving them a vote, by putting them in leadership positions for protecting the very rights they deny. The U.N. is part of the intellectual trend that propels, whitewashes and empowers this massive evil.
The barbaric treatment Rahaf endured seems unimaginable to those of us in the West, particularly in America. Yet we’re endorsing and funding an organization that whitewashes that evil and props up torturers. It’s past time to seriously question if America, the freest country on earth, belongs there.
Agustina Vergara Cid is a Young Voices Contributor. You can follow her on X at @agustinavcid