Qatar has apologized after authorities forcefully examined female passengers who flew to Sydney via a Qatar Airways flight in a bid to discover who gave birth to an abandoned baby, though Australia said it was just one of 10 flights that was subjected to the searches.
After the searches were condemned by Australia, Qatar said it had commenced an investigation into the women’s treatment who were on Qatar Airways Flight 908 on October 2, 2020.
Qatar provided no instant explanation on how its officials decided to carry out invasive vaginal tests on the women. However, human rights activists have labeled the tests carried out under duress as sexual assault.
Qatar is an important hub for East-West travel and the country is hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup. In Qatar, sex outside marriage is a crime. In the past, migrant workers hid pregnancies and made efforts to travel out of the country to give birth while others abandoned their babies in a bid to avoid prison.
Qatari Government Communications Office released a statement which says authorities detected the newborn baby in a plastic bag that was buried under garbage at the airport.
It labeled the discovery an egregious and life-threatening contravening of the law. According to the statement, officials searched for the parents of the baby including every flight in the vicinity where the baby was found.
Though the aim of the urgently concluded search was to prevent the doers of the horrible crime from going uncaught, the government of Qatar regrets any inconveniences or infringement on the rights of any traveller this action might have caused.
Also, the government said its investigation would be internationally shared. Meanwhile, the statement did not ascertain that women on 10 flights at that time were searched as the Foreign Minister of Australia, Marise Payne informed a Senate committee recently.
The Prime Minister of Australia, Scott Morrison said he expected the Qatari government to share the investigation of the examinations with his government as soon as possible.
While talking further about the the way the women were treated, Morrison said: “It was appalling. As a father of daughters, I could only shudder at the thought that any woman, Australian or otherwise, would be subjected to that.”
Australia has described the situation as not appropriate and beyond sitiations through which women could give free and informed consent. Also, Australian Federal Police are investigating the matter.
