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Supplied<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\nWhen Lolita came to Australia in 2022, she was fleeing an older man she’d been forced to marry as a child in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n She told confidants she’d escaped a cycle of violence and sexual servitude so extreme it had repeatedly landed her in hospital.<\/p>\n But less than a year after her arrival, she vanished – last seen by a friend who claims he watched as she was taken from her apartment by a group of Saudi men in a black van.<\/p>\n Records show that Lolita, who is in her early 30s and goes by a single name, was put on a flight from Melbourne to Kuala Lumpur in May 2023. From there, her lawyer believes she was returned to Saudi Arabia and detained.<\/p>\n But Lolita\u2019s exact whereabouts and safety – or whether she is even alive – remain unknown.<\/p>\n It’s far from the first time the mysterious plight of a Saudi woman fleeing her homeland has ended up in the headlines.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat makes this case particularly compelling, compared to some other cases of Saudi women who have disappeared\u2026 or turned up dead, is that we have a witness,\u201d says solicitor Alison Battisson.<\/p>\n The Saudi Arabian embassy in Canberra declined to comment. However, in a statement to the BBC, the Australian Federal Police said it became \u201caware\u201d of the alleged kidnapping in June and had \u201cstarted making immediate inquiries\u201d both within the country and “offshore”.<\/p>\n Advocates fear Lolita’s case is part of a growing trend in Australia, in which agents of other countries are monitoring, harassing or assaulting their expats with impunity. <\/p>\n The government has declared foreign interference – of all forms – its \u201cmost significant\u201d national security threat and promised a crackdown.<\/p>\n But Ms Battisson and other rights campaigners are questioning how a woman – who had told immigration authorities she was fleeing violence – could allegedly be snatched from her home in broad daylight.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Lolita first came to Melbourne in May 2022, according to flight records.<\/p>\n Although she mostly kept to herself, she soon struck up a friendship with a Sudanese refugee who had also lived in Saudi Arabia, as an undocumented migrant.<\/p>\n It was Ali – not his real name – who put Lolita in touch with Ms Battisson, as she had helped him with his own asylum claim.<\/p>\n The human rights lawyer spoke frequently with Lolita from that point onwards, describing her as a \u201csoft spoken\u201d woman with a clear resolve to take back her life: \u201cShe was determined this was her time.\u201d<\/p>\n But their correspondence ended abruptly in May of last year, after Ms Battisson received a \u201cstrange\u201d text message from Lolita.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was in much more formal language than she had ever used, and it said, \u2018What is my visa status\u2019,\u201d she tells the BBC.<\/p>\n Lolita’s claim for a protection visa – for people at risk of persecution in their home country – had previously been rejected, but Ms Battisson was helping her appeal against the decision. She says that is something her client was acutely aware of, as the two discussed it frequently.<\/p>\n \u201cI now believe that message was actually from the people who had taken Lolita,\u201d Ms Battisson says. She thinks they were trying to work out whether Lolita had a permanent visa, which would have given her the right to Australian consular assistance back in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n Then came the radio silence. As the weeks turned to months, Ms Battisson knew in her gut that \u201csomething was seriously wrong\u201d.<\/p>\n She couldn’t reach Ali either, which was highly unusual as the two kept in regular contact.<\/p>\n When Ali eventually did return Ms Battisson\u2019s calls, her worst fears were confirmed.<\/p>\n He said that he had witnessed Lolita being taken, but that the incident had left him so paralysed with fear for his own family, that he\u2019d gone to ground.<\/p>\n He detailed his last conversation with Lolita – a frantic phone call in which she pleaded for protection from a group of men planning to take her to Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n She even sent him pictures of the bags she claimed they had forced her to pack.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Ali told Ms Battisson he rushed to her flat, but on arrival an Arabic-speaking man threatened him, using personal details that Ali believes could only have come from the Saudi embassy in Canberra.<\/p>\n Changing tack, he contacted a friend and asked him to go to the airport, so the two of them could \u201ccreate a fuss\u201d and get the attention of security.<\/p>\n But they never saw Lolita in the terminal.<\/p>\n \u201cIt took me a year in total to confirm she had been taken,\u201d Ms Battisson says, the dismay in her voice palpable.<\/p>\n The pro-bono lawyer has since been building a paper trail to try to piece together what happened.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have phone records and message records of her talking about being frightened. And we also have a pattern of her moving house because of that fear,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n And then there\u2019s the recent testimony of a relative. \u201cAs far as they know, Lolita is now in a Saudi prison or detention centre,\u201d Ms Battisson says.<\/p>\n Glaring gaps in the story remain, but one thing Ms Battisson is unequivocal about is that \u201cthere are simply no safe options\u201d for Lolita in her home country.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Since becoming the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia in 2017, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has, in some ways, sought to modernise the kingdom by loosening its long-standing restrictions on women.<\/p>\n Crucially though, all females still require a male guardian to sign them out of prison, and in Lolita\u2019s case, that obligation would fall to the husband she allegedly fled halfway across the world to escape.<\/p>\n That fact alone, Ms Battisson says, should be enough to convince Australian authorities that there is \u201csimply no way she would have willingly gone back to Saudi Arabia\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nUp and vanished<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Supplied<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"Getty](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/95ed\/live\/2e23cb50-4fd9-11ef-b8a6-c9027db4120d.jpg.webp\")
Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\u2018The threat is real\u2019<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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