Why Australian women lost case to sue Qatar Airways over forced strip searches

It was a nightmare at Doha airport. On October 2 2020, hundreds of women were forcibly removed from Qatar Airways and were reportedly strip-searched. In 2021, five women moved an Australian court against the airline, alleging unlawful “physical contact” and false imprisonment. But now they have lost the bid to sue the carrier.

An Australian court on Thursday dismissed
the case
because the state-owned airline could not be prosecuted under the laws governing global travel. Justice John Halley found that Qatar Airways could not be held responsible under a multilateral treaty called the Montreal Convention.

We take a look at the case that sparked global outrage and escalated to a diplomatic issue, and the court order.

Why women were strip-searched at Doha airport

Hundreds of women were forcibly deplaned from Qatar Airlines on 2 October 2020, as officials searched for the mother of a newborn found dumped in a trash can at a terminal. These included several passengers from Australia, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. Thirteen women were removed from the flight to Syndey.

Many women said they were forced to undergo non-consensual gynaecological or intimate physical examinations to check whether they had given birth and abandoned the baby. The women said that they had not consented to the examinations and were not informed why they were subjected to them.

The strip searches left the passengers traumatised. One of the women, who was flying to Australia with her five-month-old son, told three Australian media outlets earlier that it was the “scariest moment” of my life, reports The Independent.

“[The nurse] said ‘I need you to lay down on the bed’ … and she grabbed my pants and my underwear and she stripped them. And for a second I just think my head was about to explode,” she was quoted as saying by The Independent. “It’s a humiliation and the abuse of power, the breach of my human rights. No one is allowed to touch me. No one is allowed to strip me naked without my consent.”

Some from Britain narrated their ordeal to the BBC after the incident. “I felt like I had been raped,” recalled a British grandmother Mandy, the publication reports. Another said she thought she was being kidnapped and held hostage.

Also read: ‘Ghost flights’: Why is Qatar Airways flying almost-empty planes in Australia?

How the incident sparked outrage and diplomatic row

There was global outrage as Qatar’s treatment of women once again came into the spotlight. The country soon swung into damage control mode.

After the incident, Qatar’s prime minister Khalid bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz Al Thani. “We regret the unacceptable treatment of the female passengers… What took place does not reflect Qatar’s laws or values,” he wrote on X, then Twitter.

A criminal prosecution was launched which led to a suspended jail term for an airport official.

In September last year, Australia’s government rejected Qatar Airways’ bid to double its flights to the country, citing the “invasive” examinations. The airline said the decision was “very unfair”.

Australia’s transport minister Catherine King said that the women’s experiences were “pretty frankly, not anything we would expect anyone, and certainly not Australians travelling on an international airline, to experience”.

Why Australian women sued the airline

More than a year after the incident, in November 2021, five Australian women, who were subjected to the invasive examination at Doha airport, decided to sue Qatari authorities and the national airline. The women decided to go to court because of what they perceived as a lack of action from Doha.

The passengers were seeking damages and alleged assault, battery, trespass and false imprisonment by the Qatari government, Qatar’s Civil Aviation Authority and Qatar Airways, according to a report in The Independent. They not only wanted the airport to change its procedure to ensure that there was no repeat of the incident but also wanted a formal apology from Qatar.

“By speaking up, we want to ensure that no woman is ever subjected to the demoralising, horrendous treatment we were subjected to,” one of the women told the BBC previously.

Why did Australian women lose the case against Qatar Airways?

The Australian court has rejected the case brought by the five women seeking compensation from Qatar Airways but their case against the airport’s operator is going ahead.

Federal Court Justice John Halley ruled the women’s argument against the state-owned airline did not meet international airline liability protocols.

“My conclusion that the exclusivity principle precludes the applicants from pursuing any claim for damages against Qatar Airways is a complete answer to the claims that the applicants seek to bring against Qatar Airways,” Halley said.

Qatar Airways could not be held responsible under the Montreal Convention, a multilateral treaty used to establish airline liability in the event of death or injury to passengers. He also found that the airline’s staff could not have influenced the actions of Qatari police who removed the women from the flight, nor the nurses who examined them in ambulances on the tarmac, according to a report in the BBC.

The judge also said the women’s case against the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority could not go ahead. However, the case against the Qatar Company for Airports Operation and Management (MATAR), the airport’s operator, could continue. MATAR is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Qatar Airways.

What happens next?

The women’s lawyer, Damian Sturzaker, said in a statement his clients were considering an appeal.

“We note however that the claims against the airport operator, MATAR remain on foot. Our clients’ resolve to continue to agitate their claims remains undiminished,” Sturzaker said. The case returns to court on May 10.

With inputs from agencies