Nigerian women often
go to Mecca with an official from their Hajj committee instead of a male
relative
Nigeria is protesting about the detention of about 1,000
Nigerian women at airports in Saudi Arabia.
The women, some of whom have been held since Sunday, had
been planning to make the Muslim Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.
Nigeria's ambassador to Saudi Arabia told the BBC the
authorities were stopping women under the age of 35.
There has been an understanding in the past that Nigerian
women are exempt from travelling with a male relative - a requirement for women
on the Hajj.
Nigerian diplomats say the agreement between National Hajj
Commission of Nigeria and the Saudi authorities allows visas to be issued for
Nigerian women going to Mecca as long as they are accompanied by their local
Hajj committee officials.
Correspondents say many Nigerians have entered Saudi Arabia
illegally to seek work.
'Mismatched surnames'
Since Sunday, hundreds of Nigerian women have been stopped
at the airports in Jeddah and Medina.
Nigeria's ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Abubakar Shehu Bunu,
said he had made a formal protest to the foreign affairs office in the capital,
Riyadh, on Wednesday.
"They are stopping women particularly between the ages
of 25 and 35 without a male relative. Those over 45 are not a concern to the
Saudi authorities," he told the BBC's Hausa Service.
One woman told the BBC her group were being held in Jeddah
not because they were travelling without male relatives but because the
surnames on their passports did not correspond with those of their husbands.
"Our husbands' names are different from our surnames
and they won't allow that," Bilkisu Nasidi, who travelled from the
northern Nigerian city of Katsina, told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.
She said the hundreds of women were sleeping on the floor,
did not have their belongings and were sharing four toilets at the King
Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah.
It is a common practice for Muslim women in Nigeria not to
take their husband's name.
More than two million Muslims are due to converge on Mecca
for this year's Hajj, which is set to culminate over a four-day period
somewhere between 24-29 October depending on lunar observations.
