Manama: A Saudi father who burned his four-year-old daughter with a car cigarette lighter after she insisted on going to see her mother will stand trial next week.

The public prosecution in the Red Sea city of Jeddah decided after conducting its investigation that the father was guilty of physically torturing and mentally tormenting his daughter Elena.

According to the case documents, the father became angry when Elena said that she wanted to see her divorced mother and burned her with the car lighter. The girl later said that her father and his wife had often beaten and insulted her, local daily Al Watan reported on Monday.

Elena’s mother, 25, said that she had married the father when she was 20 and that her husband started beating her one year and a half after their daughter’s birth.

She added that the husband used to kick her out of the house at late hours and to lock her in the bathroom, forcing her to ask for divorce.

The mother took another husband and moved to Madina, prompting the father to ask for Elena’s custody. The daughter went to live with her father and her step-mother.

The mother divorced her second husband and moved back to Jeddah to stay with her family. There she was able to see her daughter according to a specific schedule.

During one of the visits, the mother noticed the burns on Elena’s left arm and took her to a hospital. The police were alerted and the mother filed a suit against her former husband for using violence against their daughter.

Questioned by the police, the father said that he had never intended to burn his daughter and that he used the car cigarette lighter to scare her. The step-mother was also questioned over her relationship with Elena.

The mother’s lawyer, Asem Hamza Al Mulla, said that Elena was a helpless victim of violence and that the Saudi laws were very clear about the punishment to be meted out to those who abuse children. “We will call for the full application of the law and for legal action against all those implicated in beating or tormenting Elena,” he said.

Saudis, now better aware thanks to a more open media of cases in which children are subjected to heart-rending abuse at the hands of their relatives, have been calling for stringent action against abusers.

However, activists and compassionate people face formidable challenges in dealing with the high numbers of abuses owing to the conservative nature of Saudi society and the particular privacy reserved for family matters.

In 2012, Princess Adila Bint Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, who patronises many charitable foundations and who has often spoken out against domestic violence, said that strategists and policymakers would need more information, research and studies to help young victims of abuse.

“These are the scientific factors that provide the sound knowledge necessary to lay plans, strategies and programmes that address the lack of care and accomplish the achievements that support children,” she said.

Reasons cited by experts to explain abusive attitudes by parents included “social exclusion, lack of social skills and addiction to drugs”.

“These have seemingly combined with a culture of passive behaviour and silent attitudes and the lack of strong preventive reactions,” experts said. “However, more facts are needed to launch robust drives to promote awareness and instil a culture of truly preventive measures because there is no reason to allow this phenomenon to continue, or, alarmingly, to grow as indicated by the figures released by competent agencies or authorities.”

Saudi Arabia recorded 206 cases of violence against children in 2012, a social activist said.

“According to the figures, 60 per cent of the cases were abuses while 20 per cent were physical violence,” said Maha Al Muneef, the executive director of the National Family Safety Programme (NFSP). “The remaining 20 per cent were negligence and mental and psychological abuses.”

Maha said that physical violence cases were “easiest to report” while sexual violence was “the most difficult to discover.”

“Psychological violence is the least reported despite the high prevalence of the cases,” she added.