Police radio collects donations to free jailed indebted women

AMMAN — Amen FM, the radio station of the Public Security Department (PSD), in Ramadan collected JD35,000 as donations from its audience to pay the debts of 19 women jailed for inability to repay due cheques and bills.

Col. Suleiman Hadidi, director of the radio and television department at PSD, on Monday said the donations helped release the women from correctional and rehabilitation centres, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. 

He added that the radio station broadcast 21 episodes of a show to collect the necessary money, where donations ranged between JD650 and JD16,000.

The PSD's Security Media Department and Amen FM aired the show, upon a suggestion by Ambassador Alaa Bashiti from the Sweden-based International Peace Organisation for Relief and Human Rights, to help return indebted women to their families, Hadidi added.  

Before Ramadan, the PSD compiled a list of women, and set selection criteria, foremost of which is that beneficiaries should have no security or criminal records, the PSD officer noted.

He also praised the high level of sympathy and interaction Amen FM audience showed with the initiative, noting that one donor expressed willingness to provide the released women with all their expenses until they find jobs. 

Ayat, one of the released women who was supposed to spend a 10-year imprisonment period, told Petra that she had been jailed for signing 14 cheques on behalf of her unemployed husband who bought items worth JD16,000 from a shop to refurnish and rehabilitate their home.

The shop owner accepted her signature because she had been employed at the time, Ayat said, adding that later she discovered that her salary was not enough to pay the instalments.

The mother of two girls, who had been jailed since May, said her husband divorced her despite what she did for him, expressing her gratitude for the PSD's initiative that brought her back to her daughters.