What To Do, Yaani*?

I shot this cartoon from the local paper a couple of months back. It's a pretty odd scenario but it does touch on the issue of how several school girls have perished in some schools around the Kingdom due to lack/hindrance of immediate rescue operations in schools for girls. As most of you know, all, if not, most institutions here are mandated to separate the sexes and are only amenable if both people are related family.

Unfortunately the Fire Departments around the country are all males and if a scenario such as a fire does occur in an all-girl facility, there are no women firefighters (that i know of) that can save their lives. And even if the male firefighters do arrive, they are faced with an "ethical" dilemma, if you will, on how they will be able to do their job without breaching religious traditions.

I'm sure the experts and critics of Riyadh community has debated about this issue for a period of time. I am but a bystander in all of these. I just want to post this as one of (what I see as) the snippets of the many cultural dilemmas of this growing nation.

Can you think of any solutions? Or has the cartoon solved the dilemma already?


*Yaani is an expression I usually hear from Arabs when I am speaking to them in English. They tend to incorporate it in their sentences to mean as "it's like that/as to say/it means/meaning"when they want to emphasize/expound what they want to say.