Fearing for Saudi teen's safety, Canada refugee agency hires guard
Updated 19:44, 17-Jan-2019
CGTN
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To ensure the safety of Saudi teenager Rahaf Mohammed, who was granted asylum in Canada, the Toronto agency helping her has hired a security guard to ensure "she is never alone" as she starts a normal life, its executive director said on Tuesday.
Mohammed, 18, made headlines after she barricaded herself in an airport hotel room in Thailand's capital Bangkok to avoid being sent home to her family, which denies abusing her. The teenager refused to meet her father and brother, who arrived in Bangkok to try to take her back home. 
The 18-year-old has received multiple threats online that have made her fear for her safety, said Mario Calla, executive director of Costi, a refugee agency contracted by the Canadian government to help her settle in Toronto.
Costi has hired a security guard and plans to "make sure she is never alone," said Calla, adding that  "It's hard to say how serious these threats are. We're taking them seriously."
Rahaf Mohammed speaks in a room in Bangkok, January 6, 2019. /VCG Photo

Rahaf Mohammed speaks in a room in Bangkok, January 6, 2019. /VCG Photo

Coming to Canada 'worth the risk,' says Mohammed

Being in Canada is "a very good feeling," the girl told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation two days after arriving in Toronto from Bangkok.
"It's something that is worth the risk I took," said the teenager, who added that many Arabian women including herself are treated as an object, "like a slave."
Renouncing her family name al-Qunun, the 18-year-old gave a public statement in Toronto on Tuesday that was read on her behalf in English by a settlement worker. "I understand that everyone here and around the world wishes me well and would like to continue to hear about how I am doing, but ... I would like to start living a normal private life, just like any other young woman living in Canada," she said in the statement read by Saba Abbas.

I just did what I would do for my own daughter, Canada's foreign minister 

Rahaf Mohammed, center, smiles as she is introduced to the media at Toronto Pearson International Airport, alongside Canadian minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland, right, in Toronto, January 12, 2019. /VCG Photo

Rahaf Mohammed, center, smiles as she is introduced to the media at Toronto Pearson International Airport, alongside Canadian minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland, right, in Toronto, January 12, 2019. /VCG Photo

When Canada's foreign minister Chrystia Freeland welcomed Mohammed at the Toronto airport in person, some critics argued that might have provoked Saudi authorities.
However, Freeland said on Tuesday she did what she would have wanted for her own daughter.
"I imagined it would be a difficult and perhaps frightening moment and it might make a difference for her personally to feel she had the personal and welcome support of our government."
Mohammed thanked the Canadian and Thai governments and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for making her move to Canada possible.
"I am one of the lucky ones," she said. "I know that there are unlucky women who disappeared after trying to escape or who could not do anything to change their reality."
Source(s): Reuters