News

Hajj nurse in trouble for mixing with men

NU Online  ·  Ahad, 17 Oktober 2010 | 00:30 WIB

Jakarta, NU Online
An Indonesian nurse who was working with the hajj organizing committee will be deported from Saudi Arabia after being found in a room with three Arab men.

Some female members of the Indonesian pilgrimage group became suspicious on Friday when they heard giggling coming from the drivers’ quarters. Dessi NRP, 25, from Palembang, South Sumatra, was later discovered without her compulsory head scarf.r />
Women in Saudi Arabia are not allowed to be alone with men who are not their husband, while head scarves, known as the hijab, must be worn at all times outside of private homes.

“When everyone was observing Friday prayer, she entered the drivers’ room, saying she needed to use the bathroom,” Subakin Abdul Munthalib, the chief of the Indonesian Hajj Organizing Committee for Medina, said on Sunday.

“She then told the men that she had a headache and asked one of them to give her a head massage before resting her head on the man’s thigh.”

Dessi said she was in the room because she had a headache and needed to use the bathroom and did not do anything wrong.

After the incident, deemed embarrassing to the Indonesian hajj organizers, Subakin asked the nursing agency that employed Dessi to send her home.

“She is assigned to serve as an officer at the hajj committee in Medina,” he said as quoted by the Jakarta Globe.

“She’s supposed to abide by the law enforced in Saudi Arabia. It’s different with the law in place in Indonesia.” (dar)