Female students in Saudi Arabia are being advised to avoid smoking in order not to ruin their looks.

A campaign launched by the Tobacco and Narcotics Combat Charity Society (Kafa) in the Red Sea city of Jeddah told the students that smoking was bad for their health and for their appearances.

Under the “Do Not Spoil Your Beauty” campaign, the girls are given presentations on the negative effects of cigarettes on their lungs as well as on their looks.

The campaign explained how smoking was not ladylike and how it affected the teeth and created black pockmarks on their faces, which ruined their physical beauty.

Salwa Saruji, the head of the women’s section at Kafa (Enough, in Arabic) warned that the number of women taking up smoking and going to cafés was increasing and needed strong action, Saudi news site Sabq reported on Monday

Saruji did not give specific figures, but official figures indicate that around 600,000 women smoke cigarettes in Saudi Arabia, making up one tenth of the total smoking population estimated at six million smokers.

The figure includes a significant proportion of expatriates and intermediate and high school students.

Female smokers in the kingdom usually puff at their first cigarettes when they are 15 years old.

Smoking among women is more prevalent in cities than in rural areas.

In 2013, a Saudi husband divorced his wife just three months after their marriage after he found a cigarette inside her bag.

A relative of the wife said that her husband became furious and decided to divorce her despite her pleas and her claims that she did not smoke and that the cigarette was not hers.

Attempts to have him change his mind over the issue and to accept reconciliation failed

 

source : gulfnews