The Face Of Saudi Domestic Abuse

This story was written by CBS News Correspondent Sheila MacVicar.

On screen, she wore brightly colored headscarves in defiance of the ubiquitous black women are obliged to wear outside their homes, and in a country where women have just been permitted to vote (in elections for a Chamber of Commerce in Jeddah), she discussed everything from politics to medicine and current events with ease.

But there was a terrible secret in her life. After falling in love and marrying her husband and father of her three children, he began to beat her. Mostly, she said, he was careful not to leave marks, and always he begged forgiveness. Like many women in many countries, she felt unable to leave him, and was further constrained by Saudi law which only rarely grants women divorces, and forces them to relinquish custody of their children.

One night in April, 2004, he began to beat her again. "He told me, 'I'm not coming to beat you, I'm coming to kill you.' He grabbed me by the neck and flung me to the ground," says Al Baz.

Repeatedly, Mohammed al Fallatta slammed his wife's head into the marble floor of their entry hall. He strangled her until she fell unconscious, then bundled her body into a car, intending to dump her in the desert. But hearing her moan, he changed his mind and left her at a hospital emergency ward.

Doctors gave her a less than ten percent chance of survival. Her face was fractured in thirteen places, and she was severely concussed. While she was in a coma, fighting for her life, her father took photographs of her severely beaten face, and when she regained consciousness, she agreed they could be printed.

"I decided to have my picture published so that it would be a lesson for others, for every man and every woman," says Al Baz.

Al Baz says from the moment she began to recover, she knew that "nothing could ever be the same again. Everything had changed." But, she added, "Society had given me confidence, a voice, the right to speak. I knew I could have an impact."

The sight of what had happened to her very familiar face at the hands of her abusive husband tore the veil off the taboo subject of domestic abuse and sparked a debate throughout the Arab world. Domestic abuse, by its very nature, is difficult to quantify in every society. But in Saudi Arabia, where strict Islamic Sharia law is applied, there are no statistics and very rarely any kind of prosecution.

Professor Madawi al Rasheed, herself a Saudi, is an anthropologist living in exile in London. "It's very difficult for these women to open up and talk about something so private and so humiliating and unless you have women represented in some of the institutions, such as the police and the judiciary," she says. "You're not going to have enough women coming from under-privileged background to talk about their plight in Saudi society."

In coming forward, Al Baz set off a debate. Her husband excused himself on TV, saying as a husband, he had the right to beat his wife. Charged with attempted murder, he was released when Al Baz was obliged to publicly pardon him in order to ensure she got a divorce and custody of the children.

From Lebanon to Qatar, audiences of Arabic satellite channels watched as incredulous women listened to men argue their right to administer what they called "light beatings." Clerics gave religious approval, some saying that as long as it didn't happen in front of the children, or leave marks on the face, beatings were permissible for a "disobedient wife."

Al Baz, called a hero by some in the Arab press, and courageous by women's groups, was vilified elsewhere.

"Many insults, so many criticisms," Al Baz says. "They said I was an agent of the Western world, that I was looking for money. Many people, up until now, in my country, consider me an embarrassment."

Nine facial surgeries later (she still needs three more and her medical bills are being paid by a sympathetic member of the Saudi Royal family), her face is not the same, and never will be. That, however, is not the reason she has been unable to return to television. Al Baz has become radioactive. Many in her own family now shun her, saying that by going public about something that should have remained private, she had shamed them.

Even getting out of Saudi Arabia was hard. On two occasions, although her papers were in order, she was prevented from boarding her flight to Europe.

She did manage to leave, and is now in Paris, where her book, "Disfigured" is on French best-seller lists and due to be published in the U.S. In Paris, she says she feels safer.

By Sheila MacVicar