As the world’s spotlight turns to the possibility of Saudi Arabia hosting the 2034 FIFA World Cup, a shadow looms over the sparkle and fanfare. Hidden beneath the shiny stadiums and hyperbolic boasts is a grim, haunting truth: Saudi Arabia’s clandestine “rehabilitation” prisons for rowdy women, known as Dar al-Reaya. These so-called care homes are symbolically indicative of the kingdom’s institutional exploitation and oppression of women, vehemently contrary to the ideals of freedom, equality, and dignity which FIFA claims to stand for.
Saudi Arabia’s Global Image vs. Harsh Realities
Saudi Arabia’s relentless quest for international recognition—through multi-billion-dollar investments in sports and soft power marketing—has offered a vision of modernity and progress. The story places before us a state eager to shed the photo of oppression, especially against women. But behind the cover of this well-executed image lies sadistic institutions where hundreds of young women are incarcerated, tortured, and gagged.
There, girls and women are detained sometimes without indictment for merely “disobedience” under patriarchal authority where a father’s or husband’s word is above law. Stories emerge of women confined for resisting male relatives, fleeing domestic abuse, or even fleeing rape. The so-called progress of the kingdom is imperiled with delusion when such open contempt for human rights in hiding goes forward with state blessing.
The Dar al-Reaya Horror
Dar al-Reaya, established in the 1960s, are closed and frightening institutions. Survivors describe them as not care homes, but prisons. They deny women dignity and humanness. They are forced to undergo religious indoctrination, weekly beatings, medication drugging, virginity tests, and massive surveillance. Women are addressed by numbers, not names—a dehumanizing tactic that denies them identity.
One of the survivors recalled how just speaking out with her surname already earned her lashes. Disobedience, isolation with a fellow woman, or even perceived disobedience is met with severe punishment. Institutionalized oppression reinforces a domination culture in which male overseers decide whether or not a woman is “fixed” enough to be returned to society. The majority of these women are often sent back to the same families or perpetrators that she fled from.
A World Cup Constructed of Oppression?
Granting the 2034 FIFA World Cup to Saudi Arabia is not just a sports decision—it’s a political endorsement of a regime that methodically suppresses women’s voices and sanctions opposition. The world has to wrestle with the moral dilemma: How do we rejoice over the football soul in a country where women are imprisoned and tortured for seeking basic human rights?
Saudi officials assert that Dar al-Reaya centers offer “shelter” to women who have committed crimes, to rehabilitate them. But the evidence testifies to something else arbitrary detention, abuse, and violence against women at the hands of the state. Maryam Aldossari, a Saudi dissident living in exile, once referred to these as “where a young girl or woman will stay in there for as long as it takes for her to accept the rules.” In essence, these are tools of repression, brainwashing the women into obeying and accepting a system that humiliates their being.
The Silencing of Dissent
Saudi Arabia’s reputation as a “modernizing” state is an illusion one sustained by repressing opposition. Females who have the courage to denounce abuse are thrown in jail, expelled from the nation, or assassinated. Leading activists have been arrested or placed under house arrest simply for demanding their basic rights, including the right to drive or the right to be exempted from male tutelage. Those who do survive the brutality of Dar al-Reaya tend to live in a state of permanent fear, haunted by what they experienced.
The reach of the regime is not limited to the border. Saudi exiles are harassed, intimidated, and faced with the Orwellian horror of forced repatriation. Exile is the only option for survival for some. To award the World Cup to this regime not only would legitimize it but embolden it.
A Moral Imperative for FIFA and the World
FIFA claims to uphold values of human rights, inclusivity, and diversity. Awarding Saudi Arabia the World Cup is against all of these. It is a signal in the wrong direction that women abuse on a systemic scale can be overlooked if a country offers enough money and entertainment.
The international community cannot be blind to the plight of Saudi women, especially when those abuses are so intimately connected with the state interest in being seen as progressive. International sporting competitions, especially one as globally high-profile as the FIFA World Cup, should not be employed to clean up the image of regimes that walk on human rights.
A Call to Action
This is a call, not just of FIFA, but of humanity. Human rights organizations, players, governments, and people alike have to come together to call for accountability. The accounts of Dar al-Reaya survivors—are accounts of beaten, jailed, and stripped of their very dignity women—are a wake-up call that we cannot prioritize entertainment and profit at the expense of justice.
Instead of rewarding repression with global acclaim, the world needs to push Saudi Arabia to get rid of these repressive institutions, guarantee women’s rights, and embrace true reform. Allowing a global celebration like the World Cup in Saudi Arabia should be the reward for nations that defend the freedom and dignity of all its people.
No World Cup for Oppression
The choice is clear. By awarding the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia, FIFA would be being party to whitewashing a regime that holds secret prisons for women. It would say to the world that systemic abuse and human rights violations are acceptable as long as there’s a cost to be incurred.
Actual reform is not achieved by staging world spectacles while women are imprisoned for asserting their right to safety or dignity. Until Saudi Arabia shuts down Dar al-Reaya, ends male guardianship, and creates full equality of rights for women, it is not worth staging the FIFA World Cup—or any world event. In rejecting Saudi Arabia’s proposal, we ally ourselves with the silenced voices of the women. We align ourselves with justice, dignity, and true equality.