Australia registers ‘serious concern’ after women on Qatar Airways flight strip-searched

The Australian government has registered “serious concerns” with the Qatari authorities over reports that several women onboard a Doha-Sydney flight were subjected to physical search after the body of a new-born was found abandoned at the airport.

On October 2, women onboard Flight QR908 from Doha to Sydney were asked to disembark and strip-searched in an ambulance on the tarmac of the Hamad International airport. The Qatari authorities reportedly carried out the physical inspection to check if they had given birth to the infant found abandoned at the airport.

A fellow passenger onboard the flight told The Guardian that the women “were presented to a female doctor and they were basically strip searched and had to take everything downwards off, all their clothes, even their underwear.”