18-year-old Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun arrived in the country that granted her asylum wearing a gray sweatshirt with the word “Canada.”
TORONTO — It was another proud moment for Canada: a Saudi teenager who had just been granted asylum walking through the arrivals gate at Toronto airport embraced by the country’s popular foreign minister.
Wearing a gray sweatshirt emblazoned with the word “Canada,” 18-year-old Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun smiled at the throng of cameras that greeted her. But she left it to Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland to do the talking.
The minister presented her as a “very brave new Canadian,” adding that the young woman — who spent the last week in a Bangkok airport hotel lobbying for her freedom — was tired and just wanted to “go to her new home.”
“Where we can save a single person, where we can save a single woman, that is a good thing to do,” said Ms. Freeland, who refused to answer repeated questions about how this decision will affect Canada’s already strained relationship with Saudi Arabia. “And I’d like to also emphasize, this is part of a broader Canadian policy of supporting women and girls in Canada and around the world.”
The Saudi teenager became a social media sensation and cause celébrè for women’s and refugee rights after fleeing her family during a holiday in Kuwait to seek asylum.
She described her life in an interview with The New York Times as one of unrelenting abuse at the hands of her family, who live in the city of Hail, in northern Saudi Arabia. She said she was once locked in a room for six months because she had cut her hair in a way that her family did not approve of and that her family members used to beat her, particularly her brother.
Two years ago, after an unsuccessful suicide attempt, her family did not seek help for her, she said.
