8 boys flee Tabuk social welfare center

Courtesy photo

JEDDAH: Five of eight juveniles who had fled a shelter for young people in Tabuk on Friday were apprehended; their escape was another episode in a series of runaway instances from several such shelters in the Kingdom.
This latest escape has set off an alarm on the role of such shelters across the Kingdom and has prompted the authorities to look for the reasons that push young people to flee, in this case by breaking a window.
What pushes young people with no one to harbor them, is one question; another is, what happens in these shelters that makes them run away despite the fact that the government provides these young people with all their needs.
According to local publications, such acts should prompt an investigation into the role played by the Ministry of Labor and Social Development in rehabilitating juveniles who are in desperate need of care and attention.
Ministry of Labor and Social Development spokesman Khalid Aba Al-Khail said that the minister Mufrej Al-Haqabani, ordered an investigation committee to find out what prompted the boys to flee.
He said that security agencies are searching for the rest of the fugitives. All were in the shelter for cases ranging from drug taking and peddling to robbery.
Suhaila Zain Al-Abedin, member of the National Society for Human Rights, said that manner in which juveniles are treated in some of these shelters is the reason for their trying to escape.
“If they [the juveniles] found care and safety, they would not think of escaping, because there is no other shelter for them,” she said.
She also said that “running away is the result of shortcomings in dealing with juveniles, and it is the role of the ministry to find out the reasons for these escapes and to open an investigation.”
She added that she had visited some orphanages and wrote a report that revealed that “the state did not fail in providing needs and requirements of the young people hosted there, including clothes, food, shelter, etc., but unfortunately there is neglect in these places.”