SOPHIE MCNEIL, REPORTER: 9pm at Bangkok airport on Saturday January the fifth.

18-year-old Saudi Arabian citizen Rahaf Mohammed Al Qunun arrives on a flight from Kuwait.

She's desperate and on the run.

RAHAF MOHAMMED: So yes, I left from Kuwait during my family holiday. I planned my escape from my house, from my family and to the airport. This happened within a few hours. I planned it at dawn, paid for my tickets, left in the morning while my family slept and I arrived at the airport. So everything happened very quickly.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Rahaf has a valid Australian tourist visa. She had planned to spend a few days in Bangkok before flying on to Melbourne and seek asylum in Australia.

But she is stopped as soon as she gets off her flight.

RAHAF MOHAMMED: A man approached me, he lied to me and said he was going to help me obtain a visa to Thailand. The truth was he worked for the Saudi embassy, he took my passport. The reason was, my family informed officials that I was missing, and I must return.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Rahaf is detained and told she has no choice but to return on the next flight despite her insistence this will place her in danger.

She is told her passport is cancelled and she won't be allowed into Thailand.

THAI IMMIGRATION OFFICIAL: You cannot videotape me.

RAHAF MOHAMMED: You just told me I have to come back to Saudi Arabia. You said that.

THAI IMMIGRATION OFFICIAL: Yes, you have to.

RAHAF MOHAMMED: Why?

THAI IMMIGRATION OFFICIAL: Because your visa is not granted. When you are rejected.

RAHAF MOHAMMED: It's too dangerous.

THAI IMMIGRATION OFFICIAL: You dangerous?

RAHAF MOHAMMED: Ya It is so dangerous to me.

THAI IMMIGRATION OFFICIAL: What do you mean so dangerous to you?

RAHAF MOHAMMED: Saudi Arabia.

THAI IMMIGRATION OFFICIAL: Uh ha.

RAHAF MOHAMMED: So I can't go back.

THAI IMMIGRATION OFFICIAL: You can go back. You just have to board the Kuwait Airlines plane because you came in with Kuwait Airlines.

RAHAF MOHAMMED: Ya.

THAI IMMIGRATION OFFICIAL: It's gonna be flight KU412 tomorrow at 11.15

RAHAF MOHAMMED: Uh ha.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Rahaf is sent to the airport transit hotel under guard and blocked from leaving.

She sends out an urgent SOS message.

TWEET: I am the girl who escaped from Kuwait to Thailand, my life is at stake and I am now in real danger if I am forcibly returned to Saudi Arabia.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Her plight spreads on social media reaching activists around the world.

MONA ELTAHAWY, FEMINIST AUTHOR: I couldn't live with myself if this was a real person, and I didn't do what I could to help her. So of course, I, I went and checked her Tweets after, and then I began to translate them into English and then I just asked people, you know, just Tweet about this. Then I DM'd her, and I said to her, "Rahaf, we need to see your face. People need to see you, so that they can believe that you exist."

RAHAF MOHAMMED: My name is Rahaf Mohammed. I'm 18 years old. I can't do anything because they have my passport and tomorrow they will force me to go back to Kuwait and I'm here. Please help me they will kill me."

SOPHIE MCNEIL: I saw Rahaf's tweets on Sunday morning and made contact with her.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Has anybody come to your room to help you?

RAHAF MOHAMMED: No.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Can you leave your room or what, are they outside?

RAHAF MOHAMMED: I have a security outside.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: I flew to Bangkok to cover her story.

By the time I arrive, she is due to be deported within hours.

I slip past the security guards and join Rahaf inside her hotel room.

RAHAF MOHAMMED: I'm hungry and tired.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: When was the last time you slept?

RAHAF MOHAMMED: Three days ago.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: What about ate properly?

RAHAF MOHAMMED: What?

SOPHIE MCNEIL: When was the last time you ate properly?

RAHAF MOHAMMED: I think yesterday

SOPHIE MCNEIL: So no food today, yeah?

RAHAF MOHAMMED: Hmmm.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: How long are you planning on staying in the room?

RAHAF MOHAMMED: I don't know. As I can.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Rahaf decides to barricade herself inside this room.

RAHAF MOHAMMED: I'm not leaving my room until I see UNHCR. I want asylum.

NEWS PRESENTER: The dramatic plea to the UN from 18-year-old Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun of Saudi Arabia.

RAHAF MOHAMMED: I'm not leaving my room until I see UNHCR.

NEWS PRESENTER: More than a day after her arrival 18-year-old Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun was still barring herself in her hotel room

NEWS PRESENTER: This is Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun in one of the many desperate please for help that she has been sending out on social media.

NEWS PRESENTER: She's believed to be the daughter of a senior Saudi government official.

MONA ELTAHAWY: There was no going back for Rahaf now, so not only has she escaped. Not only has she said, "I'm asking for asylum." Not only has she said, "I renounce Islam." Not only has she said, "My family will kill me if I go back," but we now find out that her father is a very important man. So that, it's just a combination of all of these things, and it just made it even more urgent that this ... there is no way this young woman can be sent back on a plane to Saudi Arabia.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Rahaf knows other Saudi women who managed to escape to Australia successfully.

RAHAF MOHAMMED: I have a friend there and she said it's a good country, they have rights for women and I can work, I can study there so that's why I want to go to Australia. I read a lot about the weather and what can I do in Australia, some stuff and meeting people and beach. A lot of things like this.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: What did you learn about women in Australia?

RAHAF MOHAMMED: About what? About women? Their rights? They have everything, like everything. You can do everything that we can't do.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: As the hours pass there are people outside the room trying to get Rahaf to open the door.

RAHAF MOHAMMED: Yes? Who are you?

ALI: Ali, it's Ali

RAHAF MOHAMMED: Yes? What do you want?

ALI: Open the door. What's wrong with you?

RAHAF MOHAMMED: I can't open the door

ALI: Huh?

RAHAF MOHAMMED: I can't

ALI: Why?

RAHAF MOHAMMED: Just because

ALI: Alright, can you open the door just a bit?

RAHAF MOHAMMED: Kuwait Airlines.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: An official from Kuwait airways has just knocked on the door and tried to get Rahaf to leave, she's refused. She's made a barricade with a table and some mattresses and they've tried all kinds of ways of enticing her out of the room, offering breakfast and then lunch and she's says that she's not leaving, and that she wants to speak to the UN.

Thai officials are now at the door telling Rahaf she has to leave.

THAI OFFICIAL: You don't have asylum in this country, you cannot take asylum in Thailand.

RAHAF MOHAMMED: You don't have asylum?

THAI OFFICIAL: Not here in Thailand.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: The Thais are saying that Rahaf hasn't formally sought asylum and she hasn't because she hasn't had the chance. She's been asking, and I've witnessed this since 7am this morning, asking to talk to Thai immigration officials to say she wants to seek asylum to formally make that claim but they never came. She asked for 2 hours so before she barricaded herself in the room she was trying to do that but wasn't given the chance.

Time passes inside room 303. Then a small victory as we learn that the flight they were trying to force Rahaf on has left.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: The Kuwait airways flight has left.

RAHAF MOHAMMED: Seriously?

SOPHIE MCNEIL: There's an Egypt airways flight in 15 minutes but the Kuwait flight has left.

RAHAF MOHAMMED: Ah good

THAI WOMAN: Excuse me madam?

SOPHIE MCNEIL: There's more people at the door trying again to entice Rahaf out... they claim the UN is here, but we know from checking with contacts that is a lie.

THAI WOMAN: Madam Excuse me. We will not send you back to your country. Don't be worried.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Rahaf logs into her Australian immigration profile... but her account no longer seems to be working.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: That's your Australian visa account? It looks like it's been cancelled.

RAHAF MOHAMMED: Shit.

SOPHIE MCNEILL: It didn't look like this before?

RAHAF MOHAMMED: No.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Rahaf's been in this room for more than 24 hours.

JONATHON HEAD, BBC News: Well throughout today this hotel has been the scene of extraordinary comings and goings with officials going in an out trying to persuade the young Saudi woman to come out of her room. At one point we thought she'd be deported, now we know that Thailand has given her an entry permit, the UN is involved and her request for asylum they say will be properly assessed.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Inside the room, we have heard nothing officially from the UN.

There's another knock at the door... the UNHCR is here.

UNHCR OFFICIAL: Can you please open the door for us?

RAHAF MOHAMMED: ID, ID?

UNHCR OFFICIAL: Sorry?

RAHAF MOHAMMED: ID

UNHCR OFFICIAL: Now

RAHAF MOHAMMED: You have to prove.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Rahaf doesn't believe at first that its them.

So the UNHCR officials would only come into Rahaf's room if I came out and they looked me in the eye and they promised that she would be safe now they said she would remain in their custody and that they would do everything in their powers to make sure that nothing happened to her and they are now conducting an interview with Rahaf about her asylum claims and this is what they promised.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Rahaf is taken to a hotel downtown under tight Thai police guard. The next day her father and brother fly into Bangkok to try to force her home.

The Saudi embassy meets with Thai officials on their behalf.

SAUDI OFFICIAL: I wish they had taken her phone instead of her passport.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: There is pressure on Australia to take Rahaf.

PETER DUTTON, HOME AFFAIRS MINISTER: There is no special treatment in this case, the case will be assessed by the United Nations and therefore it doesn't make it different to any other case of that nature

SOPHIE MCNEIL: The UNHCR approves Rahaf's asylum claim under a fast track system for those facing immediate threats to their life -

They refer her case to Australia and Rahaf is taken to the Australian Embassy in Bangkok to process her case.

The next day, Foreign Minister Marise Payne arrives in the Thai capital on a short visit.

MARISE PAYNE, FOREIGN MINISTER: There is no possibility that Ms. Alqunun will be going back with me as you put it today. That is because there are steps which are required in the process which Australia, and any other country considering such a matter, would have to go through. We will go through those according to our own system and our own processes.

Reporter: Is there a time frame for that?

Marise Payne: Not a specific time frame, no.



SOPHIE MCNEIL: By Friday morning there is still no decision from Australia - and the UN is increasingly worried about Rahaf's security. They take her to the Canadian embassy where her visa is approved in a matter of hours. She will fly out to Toronto tonight.

CANADIAN FOREIGN MINISTER CHRYSTIA FREELAND: Everyone please.

I'll give the flowers to Rahaf.

So everyone this is Rahaf Alqunun, a very brave new Canadian.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: I travelled to Canada to meet up again with Rahaf

She still can't believe she made it.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: You look beautiful.

RAHAF MOHAMMED: I felt that I was free and that I was reborn again. It was an amazing thing and made me happy because I felt loved and welcomed. Freedom is the most important thing for a person. I gave everything up to be free.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Under Saudi Arabia's male guardianship system, a man controls a woman's life from birth until her death. Every Saudi woman must have a male guardian, normally a father or husband, who has the power to make critical decisions on her behalf.

RAHAF MOHAMMED: I'm not allowed to marry the person I want. I'm not allowed to get a job without the permission of my guardian. The guardianship laws determine a woman's pathway...her employment, her job, even travel isn't allowed. Saudi women are treated like minors even if they're 50 or 60 years old.

MONA ELTAHAWY, FEMINIST AUTHOR: Sometimes that male guardian can be the teenage son of a professor, who just doesn't feel like giving her the permission she needs to travel. So this is incredible power given to their male guardians that renders them ... renders women in Saudi Arabia perpetual minors, and I call this state-sanctioned patriarchy a form of gender apartheid.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Escaping is not easy.

ADAM COOGLE, MIDDLE EAST RESEARCHER, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: There's really two methods for doing this that I've seen. One is they hack into their father's phone and change the permission settings for their travel, they steal their passport somehow uh if they don't have it, and you know, run to the airport, get out of the country, you know, as soon as they can. The other method is if the family takes a vacation, they flee and abscond while outside the country. So we have seen in some instances when women do this, they try to flee abroad to other, other places, the Saudi state is active in exerting its diplomatic influence to try to interdict them.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Saudi woman Dina Ali Lasloom is one of those that tried to escape to Australia but didn't make it.

In April 2017, the 24-year-old was stopped in the Philippines while she was in transit on her way to Sydney.

MEAGHAN KHAN: She came up to me. And I was like, "Hi." And she said, "Hi." She said, "Can I use your cell phone?" And I asked, "Why?" And she said, "I've, something's wrong with my flight." I said, "Okay. Sure." And I gave her my cell phone.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Canadian Meagan Khan was sitting in the Manila airport transit lounge when she was approached by Dina Ali.

She told Meagan that her passport had been confiscated by an official from the Saudi embassy.

Meagan was with her as she tried to talk to Philippine airlines staff.

MEAGAN KHAN: They said, "I'm sorry, but an important person called and told us to hold her documents and not allow her to leave." And they did not tell me who this important person was. She was crying, she was like, "Meagan, they're not trying to help me. They're not listening to me. They're just waiting for my family to come who wants to kill me." And that was the first time she said that to me, and that's when I was, "What are you talking about?" And that's when she started sharing, "Meagan, I'm Saudi and I'm not allowed to go anywhere on my own. I wasn't allowed to travel on my own. I'm trying to get to Australia to seek asylum. I couldn't believe it, to be honest. I was in complete shock

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Dina Ali told Meagan she had escaped from a violent family and a life with no freedom to make her own decisions.

The two young women began to desperately try and contact anyone who could help.

MEAGAN KHAN: We tried to call, um, a lot of human rights numbers that we were literally Googling off online. We were calling everyone. Her friends were sending us Snapchat. We were literally just in mission mode. Our mission was to find someone to come into the airport and help us. And I called every single person possible. I called the police station in Manila, I called the local Manila newspaper. I left voice mails for dozens of people.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Dina Ali asked Meagan to record a video documenting her plight.

DINA ALI: My name is Dina Ali and I'm a Saudi woman who fled Saudi Arabia to Australia to seek asylum. I start in Philippines for transit. They took my transit and block me for 13 hours just because I'm a Saudi woman. With the collaboration of the Saudi embassy. If my family come they will kill me. If I go back to Saudi Arabia I will be dead. Please help me. I'm recording this video to help me and know that I'm real and here.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: And then Dina Ali's worst fears were realized.

MEAGAN KHAN: And I remember, she was sitting, eating a sandwich and she was holding it, and then she just stopped. And I was, I looked at her, and I'm like, "What's wrong?" And she said, um, "Megan, they're here." And I, I was like, "What?" She said, "Megan, they're here. Send the video." And I was like, "What are you talking about?" And I turned around and I saw these two guys and this lady, and I said, and, to be honest, one of the uncles looks a lot like Dina. And I said, "Is that your uncles?" And she's like, "Those are my uncles." And I'm like, "Oh my God." And I was sitting back down, trying to take pictures, and at this point, her uncle got up, and he's like, "What are you doing? Give the, uh, don't take pictures! Give me your phone! Delete those pictures!"

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Meagan filmed Dina Ali pleading with airline staff for help.

DINA ALI: Don't confuse me. I know him. No. He's not my father. He's not my father.

You're not helping. You don't know him.

MEAGAN KHAN: That's when I was, like, really, I was crying a lot and Dina was crying a lot at this point

DINA ALI: I beg for you I beg. No one help me. No one help me.

I ask. No you don't

He's not my father.

You are helping.

This is the worst airlines. No one help me.

All should take me back.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Dina Ali's uncles left the transfer area... A man purporting to be a lawyer arrived, promising to help get back Dina Ali's passport and ticket.

Feeling hopeful it was going to be ok, Meagan Khan went to catch her flight.

MEAGAN KHAN: I heard from Dina the next morning. She called me. And when she called me, she was crying. And she said, my uncles tricked me, and they tried to get me onto a flight back to Saudi Arabia. And they have me locked up in a room right now.

She was crying and she told me she was beaten and I felt ... like ... I guess I didn't care really how I felt. I think I was in shock. I- I was like, I need help. I like, what am I doing? Why did I leave? I felt really bad. I- I- I felt really bad. I felt like I left her. I felt like I left her ...

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Another passenger filmed as Dina was dragged screaming to the plane.

ADAM COOGLE: Well the guard who had been responsible for, for keeping an eye on Dina while she was at the airport hotel, he was really quite horrified by what he had seen,

MONA ELTAHAWY: They beat her. They taped her mouth shut. They bound her arms and legs together, and dragged her onto a plane kicking and screaming, and nobody did anything.

ADAM COOGLE: They essentially forcibly abducted her and took her to the aeroplane uh and these would've been apparently been her uncles as well as airline officials uh duct taped uh Dina's mouth shut, uh they duct taped her hands together, they duct taped her to a wheel chair, threw a blanket over her. And we did hear from other passengers uh who landed in Riyadh that a woman was dragged onto the plane screaming.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Dina Ali Lasloom has not been heard of publicly since.

MEAGAN KHAN: I wish I could say, we could have done better, if I could do a list of things we did better, I would. You know, one of those would be I wouldn't have left. It's not worth it to leave. It's better to stay. It's better to stay. It's not an expensive flight to be there for. It's ... it's just a phone. You know, this person's life. Give them the phone. You know, there's thing I learnt in that situation that I would do differently for her.

MONA ELTAHAWY: What happened to Dina Ali now, is become this awful traumatising worse-case scenario for Saudi women who try to escape and seek asylum.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: The Saudi embassy in Manila issued a statement calling the case a "family matter" saying Dina Ali "returned with her relatives to the homeland."

ADAM COOGLE: What we understand, and we've heard from um sources inside Saudi Arabia is that she was taken to a women's shelter uh in Riyadh and held there for a period of time. Uh after that the trail more or less goes cold and there's not a lot of public information.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: But in Saudi Arabia women's shelters operate more like de-facto prisons... and alleged abusers of women are protected by the state.

ADAM COOGLE: Saudi women who attempt to approach police, for example, to report abuse by uh a male family member for example, sometimes they go to a police station or they call the police station and uh uh somebody there will tell them, well you can't ..you know, you can't come here, you can't make a complaint unless your male guardian is with you. And in many cases that person would be the abuser.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: It's believed Dina Ali was initially taken here, to a closed women's 'shelter' in Riyadh.

These state-run institutions called Dal Al Reayas are where women who disobey the male guardship system or 'shame' their families end up - including victims of domestic violence.

They are found in cities and towns throughout Saudi Arabia.

ADAM COOGLE: When they enter um uh many of them don't realise that these shelters are entirely closed, right? Once they go in they can't get out. Uh the state isn't going to release them to go live on their own.

MANAL AL-SHARIF: You're treated in an undignified way, as a prisoner, not as a, a survivor, or a victim of domestic violence. So you're locked, you're not allowed to finish your education or get a job. You're not allowed to even make phone calls. So the way they treat women in shelters, government run shelters, was really humiliating to women.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Manal al-Sharif is one of Saudi Arabia's most renowned female rights activists. She now lives in self-imposed exile in Sydney.

MANAL AL-SHARIF: 2am they knock at my door the secret police and that means you are a threat to the national security in my country.

MANAL AL-SHARIF: But the worst part is not being locked in that shelter, the worst part, you can't leave that shelter without having a male guardian getting you out of there, and that male guardian could be your abusive husband, your abusive fa- father or brother. So, what do they do, they find them husbands, who are willing to marry them. That's the reality of women who run away from abusive relationship in Saudi Arabia.

ADAM COOGLE: In some cases we've actually seen them encourage women to uh get married to strangers who will take them out and then become their new male guardians. And I ... some women actually do that. They just say, you know, we'll roll the dice and hopefully we'll have a better chance with a new person.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We've become very good friends over a short period of time.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Since Saudi Crown Prince Mohamad Bin Salman took power in 2017, he's been selling himself to the world as a 'reformer.'

NORAH O'DONNELL, 60 MINUTES: Are women equal to men?

MOHAMMED BIN SALMAN: Absolutely we are all human begins and there is no difference.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: MBS, as he is known, proudly announced that Saudi women, would be finally given the right to drive.

MOHAMMED BIN SALMAN: This is no longer an issue. Today driving schools have been established and will open soon. In a few months women will drive in Saudi Arabia. We are finally over that painful period that we cannot justify.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Manal al-Sharif was briefly jailed in 2011 for staging a protest calling for women to be allowed to drive.



She was excited by the thought of real reform in her home country - but it didn't last.

MANAL AL-SHARIF: So I was really hopeful, and I think it wasn't only me, it was a lot of Saudi youth and when the arrest happened, I knew that's the moment that it is not what we thought. It was all a propaganda.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Just before the driving ban was lifted, the Crown Prince oversaw a brutal crackdown arresting the Saudi women who had spent years campaigning for the right to drive.

One of Manal's closest friends, Loujain Al Hathoul was among those thrown in jail.

MANAL AL SAHRIF: On March 15, 2018, Loujain was kidnapped from Abu Dhabi, she was handcuffed, blindfolded, flown on a private jet to Riyadh where she was interrogated and placed under a travel ban. In May, like a few weeks before the official date of lifting the ban, she was placed in a solitary confinement, in a place that no one knows, even her own family didn't know where she was. There was like a wave of arrest amongst female activists. Aziza al-Yousef, she's a grandmother, she's also a, a, a professor. Eman al-Nafjan, she's a professor, and, ah ... and a blogger, a very famous, ah, ah, blogger in English language, a mother of four kids, her youngest is a toddler, and this woman who's been put in custody without allegation, without charges, without trial, without access to lawyers or her family, or her kids, who are these people doing this?

ADAM COOGLE: One of the reasons I think that MBS and Saudi authorities moved against these women is they didn't want them claiming credit for reforms. They did not want the image that women had campaigned, had generated international pressure, and that Saudi Arabia had capitulated to that pressure. They wanted it instead to look like MBS had decided to become a benevolent ruler and liberate his women.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: The Saudi government also tried to pressure Manal al Sharif to stay quiet about the lifting of the ban.

MANAL AL-SAHRIF: I received a phone call from the National Security asking me not to talk about it or Tweet about it. And I was in Australia, that was really strange, how did they get my Australian number?

SOPHIE MCNEIL: They also encouraged her to visit Saudi Arabia but she now believes they had sinister motives.

MANAL AL-SAHRIF: And they were really keen. They asked me to go to the embassy here, they were really keen to grant my son a visa, and apparently were just luring me to go back to Saudi Arabia to be put in jail. I barely escaped a very ill fate, that is being, um, served by my friends who fought for women's right in my country.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: So you believe that they were trying to lure you back, Manal?

MANAL AL-SHARIF: Yes. Yes.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: And what do you think would've happened if you'd gone back?

MANAL AL-SHARIF: I would definitely be in jail. Definitely.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Human Rights groups say the Saudi women activists have been tortured and abused in jail.

MONA ELTAHAWY: They said that they'd been subjected to electric shocks, flogging, and sexual harassment, and one of the relatives said that their detained relative could barely walk when they met them, some of them had been hung from the ceiling. The Wall Street Journal also broke the story that Saud al-Quhtani, the same aide who was the one who conveyed MBS's orders to kill Jamal Khashoggi, was in the room when Loujain al-Hathloul was subjected to water- waterboarding, and that he, himself, threatened her with rape, and threatened to murder her.

ADAM COOGLE: Women um have reported that they were subjected to various forms of brutal torture including uh electric shocks, including uh whippings, including uh sexual harassment, verbal threats, verbal threats of rape included as well.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: The Saudis are increasingly working to enforce male guardianship outside their borders.

I've come to Hong Kong to learn what happened to two Saudi sisters who were in transit here on their way to Sydney in September last year.

News of their plight emerged via twitter.

Tweet: Help me please they will kill me i'm stuck in hong kong i'm saudi girl with my sister.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: The Saudi consul general was waiting for them when their plane landed. He confronted them at the airport.

Tweet: i came her transit from Colombo to go to Australia but consulate general of Saudi Arabia take my passport and cancel my flight.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: The sisters had valid Australian visas. They booked seats on the next Qantas flight but an Australian Border Force official working in Hong Kong airport blocked them from boarding.

Tweet: i book another flight and they tell the immigration guy that I'm going to take asylums and he did'nt allow us to go! Please my family will kill me if I back to saudi please help us

SOPHIE MCNEIL: The young women managed to flee the airport - but they remain trapped here in Hong Kong. The Department of Home Affairs cancelled their visas.

The girls' passports have been cancelled but there is no way they are going anywhere near the Saudi consulate to get them renewed. They have now been living here in hiding for4 months... moving locations several times... to avoid their family or Saudi authorities tracking them down

RAHAF MOHAMMED: They share my story. I hope they reach a safe country and are not forced to return or kidnapped. Help them, and don't stand in their way. they really need your help so that they can reach a safe country.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: I've come to an apartment in the western suburbs of Sydney that is now being used as a safe house....

At least 80 Saudi women have sought asylum in Australia in the last few years. These young women are among them. Yet even here, they won't reveal their identities because they don't feel safe.

They all have harrowing stories of escape.

RAWAN: It took me five years to plan it. So every time I try it just fail. So eventually it succeeded. We booked a late flight when he was asleep. So that gave us time to, to escape, yeah.

NOURAH: In one week I took everything I need. One small bag. Nothing, nothing important. Just my life and my freedom. And I escaped. It wasn't easy, it's a long journey to be here in Australia. But it's worth it.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Even when Saudi women manage to make it all the way here... there's no guarantee they will get in.

We have been told that Saudi women who arrive alone in Australian airports are being asked by Border Force officials why they are not travelling with a male guardian.

Four Corners has evidence of two young Saudi women arriving at Sydney airport in the past two years and when they made their asylum claims clear to Australian officials. They were turned back.

Two of these women went to the airport to pick up their friend but she never came out.

RANYA: She was planning to apply asylum here, she came from Saudi to Indonesia and Indonesia to Sydney.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: They have not heard from since.

RANYA: Then since that time I never heard about her or what happening to her. We tried actually to reach her but we haven't heard from her, hopefully she's alive.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: But you don't know?

RANYA: We don't know.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Some of the women here say they have been harassed and intimidated by Saudi men living in Australia - trying to coerce them into returning home.

Four Corners has established that one of those men works for the Saudi Ministry of Interior.

RANYA: I don't know how actually they got my email address.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: And what did he say?

RANYA: He just tried to meet me actually. He said don't worry we will meet and chat. Of course, I refused and I said no way.

RAWAN: They're saying that they wanna talk to you. Can we meet, can we meet up in a coffee shop? We can get you what you want, what you like. We can get you, we can, we can offer you anything you want. They say nothing is going to happen to you if you go back, don't worry we'll try to talk with your male guardian there, its ok, nothing's going to happen to you. They lie to us so we can go back and not talk about what's happening inside Saudi Arabia for women, so they want to keep us silent.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Like the majority of the Saudi women in Australia these women are all here on bridging visas - they're terrified the Australian government might reject their asylum claims and send them back.

NOURAH: I live with this fear every day because I know what's going to happen to me if I went back to Saudi Arabia. It's really hard to say that but I'm not going back. I prefer to kill myself because anyway they will kill us but with torture.

SOPHIE MCNEIL: Rahaf Mohammed is now a free resident of Canada.

Her dream is for women in Saudi Arabia to have the same rights she now has.

RAHAF MOHAMMED: I don't wish for them to escape as I did but I do wish for the laws to change in Saudi Arabia so that nobody is forced to escape and give up everything in their life.

MONA ELTAHAWAY: When Rahaf escaped, and when Rahaf forced her issue on the global consciousness, thereby forcing onto the global consciousness the status of women in Saudi Arabia, I was like, thank you! Thank you, Rahaf! It took the plight of an 18-year-old young woman to finally make the world ask, "What the fuck is Saudi Arabia doing to women, that they are escaping?"

BACK-ANNOUNCE: The Saudi Embassy in Canberra and Australia's Immigration Minister declined to be interviewed and did not answer specific questions about the cases referred to in our story.

Before we go tonight, you may have heard today's news that our friend and colleague Sarah Ferguson has been appointed as the ABC's new bureau chief in Beijing in a major boost to the ABC's coverage of China. We'll certainly miss Sarah here at 4 Corners but It's a fantastic appointment and we look forward to seeing Sarah's brilliant reporting out of China.

Next week, the rise of the billion-dollar cyber scammers, stealing money, breaking hearts and landing some in jail for drug trafficking. See you then.