Saudi teen refuge says coming to Canada was ‘worth the risk’

A Saudi teen has fled family to pursue an education, get a job and “live a normal life” in Canada - things she said she could not do in her home of Saudi Arabia, she told Canadian media on Monday.

Being in Canada is “a very good feeling,” Rahaf Mohammed told the media, two days after arriving in Toronto from Bangkok.

“It’s something that is worth the risk I took.”

"We are treated as an object, like a slave," she said. "I wanted to tell people my story and about what happens to Saudi women."

Rahaf Mohammed grabbed international attention last week after she barricaded herself in a Bangkok airport hotel room to resist being sent home to her family, which denies abusing her.

She had been on a trip to Kuwait with her family when she fled on a flight to the Thai capital, saying she intended to take a connecting flight to Australia and had an Australian visa.

But she says her passport was seized by a Saudi diplomat when he met her coming off the flight in Bangkok, leaving her stranded.

Mohammed - who has dropped al-Qunun from her name because her family has disowned her - then sent a series of tweets pleading for help from her airport hotel room.

Rahaf refused to meet her father and brother, who arrived in Bangkok to try to take her back to Saudi Arabia.

The United Nations High Commission on Refugees granted her refugee status, and Canada agreed to take her in.

Rahaf’s case has drawn global attention to Saudi Arabia’s strict social rules, including a requirement that women have the permission of a male “guardian” in order to travel, something rights groups say can trap women and girls as prisoners of abusive families.

In an interview, Rahaf said: “I felt that I was reborn, especially when I felt the love and the welcome”.