A group of women who were forced to undergo gynecological examinations at Doha airport in 2020 and who this month filed charges against the Qatari authorities urged Qatar on Sunday to guarantee the safety of female fans during the World Cup which will begin next month.
In October 2020, passengers on ten Qatar Airways flights, including 13 Australians, complained that they had been forced to carry out gynecological examinations, carried out in order to find the mother of a newborn baby abandoned in the toilet. of the airport.
Two years later, five women this month filed lawsuits in Australia against the airline and the Qatari civil aviation authority, seeking compensation and damages for the trauma suffered, and demanding through their lawyers that this incident does not happen again.
Post-traumatic stress
“This group of brave women was forced to take legal action to tell Qatar that what happened was unacceptable and should not be allowed to happen again,” lawyer Damian Sturzaker told AFP. Less than a month from the World Cup, the women (who will travel to Qatar) are entitled to obtain from Qatar the assurance that human rights will be respected. »
According to documents filed in Australian federal court earlier this month, the five women were between the ages of 31 and 73 at the time and were all passengers on flight QR908 from Doha to Sydney, Australia. While their plane was on the tarmac, an announcement in the cabin invited all women on board to leave the aircraft with their passports, and “people in uniform and armed entered the aircraft”.
Qatar’s ‘sincere apologies’
Four women were then taken to ambulances to be stripped naked and subjected to forced examinations of their genitals, as well as for one of them of her chest and stomach. All of them said they suffered from post-traumatic stress. They accuse Qatar Airways and the authorities of negligence, assault, assault and battery, forcible confinement and other offences.
This incident having taken on a diplomatic dimension, the Prime Minister of Qatar had offered his “sincere apologies”. Qatar Airways and the Qatari government did not immediately comment, but authorities in the country had previously announced that legal action would be taken against those responsible.