This is Melissa Wozney’s story. She is a friend of mine. This is her story in her words, with some editing for clarity by me.
I am a Canadian citizen who first flew to Saudi Arabia on January 1 2014 to teach ESL at the University of Hail. I met my future husband online on May 28, at a dating site called muslima.com. I now believe he was an Internet predator, but I didn’t see it at the time. We talked lots of times over audio and video calls, until we got comfortable with each other. He proposed to me and I accepted. We hadn’t yet met in person, but he was charming enough to convince me he was a good and honest guy who would make a good husband.
I had to send him personal information for him to do this. He was completely able to fool me over everything. I had to visit him in October to get blood tests as part of the marriage permission process. I did so, and met him, his sister, and his sister’s kids for the first time that month.
I got moved from the University of Hail in December 2014 when some students, their parents, and university staff found out i was going to marry a Saudi guy. I was transferred Riyadh for a few weeks then in late January 2015 I was moved to Rowdah Jeddah where I taught at a small English school. Upon arriving in Jeddah, I saw a few strange things happen. I stayed with him a few weeks at his resort home. He soon kicked me out to a hotel then drove away then disappeared on me. During that time, I think secret police picked him up then would interrogate him, I heard this in one voice message he left me saying it’s better we are not together. We only met a few times then; he didn’t get marriage permission yet.
After getting kicked out, I was in a hotel a few weeks until I moved in with a Pakistan girl roommate. During this time, the school never paid me or gave me housing at all. I hired a lawyer and sued the school I was working for. I won in this instance, in part due to a newspaper article.
I didn’t break up with him after getting kicked out because I understood that an unmarried couple couldn’t live together. We didn’t talk for a few months. Finally he called me one day in June, while I was staying with that friend, to say he got marriage permission. He paid contacts 50,000 sr under the table to get it, telling me he would marry me under the condition that he kept his first wife. I agreed to marry him because It was blind love. I met a much nicer guy too. The easy way out is at times the wrong way out. If i had married the nicer guy i think i would be happy and have a kid now too. I regret all this.
I thought the guy I married loved me, but over time it’s clear he only wanted a misyar or simple sex marriage. I was open minded about being a second wife as long as I had my rights as a Saudi wife.Life could have been decent and okay. But he made it into misyar after the fact.
I then learned that he married me in court then registered me under one if his companies to be able to control me. I was never registered under his family card and didn’t get any rights at all. If I angered him he could list me as a harub or runaway. He never gave me money or any support.
He was also having marital troubles with his first wife, to the point where he kicked her out of the villa he owned in Jeddah. The two of them have nine kids. It became apparent to me that she only wanted to use him for money and a home, and did whatever she could to ruin things for me, and try to drive a wedge between my husband and I, even though having multiple wives is normal for me in the region. On weekends we would go and visit his mom. I could feel she and the rest of the family hated me.
He was unstable, nervous too, easy to shake up. I think he was angry that I kept asking for simple rights and there wasn’t much food in the home at the time. He got angry and stormed off. I tried to find him but couldn’t. He came back later. He punched me in the arm and pushed me. It was very scary.
Then one day under false pretenses he moved me to his mom’s villa without my consent and left me there. One of his sons from the first wife told me he bought the place for the other wife to have.
This is where all the problems and worse violence began. I think his stress and and his mental illness made me worse. He would start getting more unstable and would flip out over anything easily. Like if I asked for food or a small home or go to school. He only made only sex visits only a day or so he would never stay a long time. He started hitting me with the power cord that charges the old laptop he gave me. Also, hitting with fists, a pillow and pushing. Days i got no food and left alone at his mom’s home, no driver, no one to talk to. I think he enjoyed the power over me.
The first time I was raped was the day he moved me into his mom’s villa. We had left his resort and went to his moms villa and i was tired and he wasn’t at all. He would take what he wanted by force and guilt. Another time it was before he left for his home In Jeddah.
He would only make sex visits. Instead of getting me a small place of my own, he decided to fix his driver’s home instead. He left me there alone all week with no money and little food. His other wife got money, a huge villa of her own, a maid, and her own driver, which showed me I was secondary to who he considered to be his real wife.
I just got badly mistreated and left abandoned in two dingy rooms, a bedroom and a small sitting room in the first floor where his sons from his first wife were living. It had no private door or entrance of its own. I was basically kidnapped. I wanted to leave him but I was stuck, no place to go or help. With no Saudi passport I couldn’t leave without his permission and most people were afraid of him. I was afraid for my life with him. There are guardianship loophole and laws where women are concerned.
I didn’t so much escape from him as he kicked me out. I started a divorce. He then threatened and begged me to drop it. I stayed with an older Canada couple in Riyadh until they moved back to Canada.
I have tried to get him from the Canadian Embassy in Riyadh as well as contacting Ottawa, but I have been unsuccessful. I have been jailed twice trying to get home, once in an actual jail, once in the detention centre at the airport. I have been unable to gain all the necessary documents needed to fly out of Saudi Arabia. I have been staying at a dirty hotel in Riyadh with limited funds. I realize now what a mistake it was to marry him, but I don’t have the resources to fix my mistake on my own.
[Andy again. Here is a recent photo of Melissa after enduring all this, followed by a couple photos of the hotel she's been staying at.]
