Human rights groups are calling for Qatar to stop criminalising sex outside marriage and end its aggressive enforcement of so called "love crimes", after it forced women on a Sydney-bound flight to undergo invasive medical examinations.
Qatar's Government has confirmed it was trying to find the mother of a newborn baby abandoned in a rubbish bin at Doha International airport on October 2 so it could arrest and prosecute her.
It said it was trying to identify the woman responsible for a "shocking and appalling attempt to kill" the baby girl.
"While the aim of the urgently decided search was to prevent the perpetrators of the horrible crime from escaping, the state of Qatar regrets any distress or infringement on the personal freedoms of any traveller caused by this action," the Government communications office said in a statement.
Human rights investigations agency Fair Square said the extreme reaction to the discovery was typical of Qatar's approach to women's rights.
"Patriarchal laws are an integral part of the Qatari criminal justice system and there are very deep-seated problems with the way women's sexual and reproductive rights are not protected," James Lynch, a Fair Square director and former diplomat in Qatar, told the ABC.
"The Qatari authorities tend to apply a strict law enforcement perspective whereas you would hope from a human rights perspective the rights of the mother and the baby would be protected, that you'd support a mother who must be in a traumatic phase to have left their child when they were born.
"Instead what you'd be likely to see is a law enforcement approach wherein the mother would be arrested."
Half of Qatar's imprisoned women jailed for sex outside marriage
Mr Lynch previously investigated conditions for women in Qatar for Amnesty International, finding the majority of women in prison in the small Gulf state were foreign workers, with half jailed for so-called "love crimes".
In Qatar, a conviction for "illicit relations" — meaning sex outside marriage — can lead to a prison sentence of up to seven years, although normally courts sentence women to one year in jail.
"These are foreign women who were there, some of whom report being raped and who were put in prison because they were not believed," Mr Lynch said.
"So it is not uncommon, particularly for women who work in houses as domestic workers, mostly from South-East Asia, south Asia, to get pregnant outside marriage and then try to hide that fact."
After extensive international criticism of its treatment of migrant workers, Qatar introduced legal protections, such as a maximum working hours and the right to change employer, but an Amnesty International investigation found the rules were poorly implemented and rarely enforced.
The Government of Qatar has not said whether the mother of the baby has been found and if she has been charged, although it has promised a report into the response of airport authorities.
Its statement said Prime Minister Khalid bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz Al Thani, who is also Minister of the Interior, directed that "a comprehensive, transparent investigation into the incident be conducted".
"The results of the investigation will be shared with our international partners," the statement said.
But Rothna Begum, a senior women's rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, said Qatar needed to be more open about its response.
"Will they reveal how many women were subject to investigation including the invasive exams?" she said.
"What measures will they take to provide redress to women subject to such forced exams?"
Ms Begum said the Gulf state needed to change its whole approach to women's rights to prevent incidents like the one at Doha Airport.
"The alleged actions of the Qatari authorities on October 2 would have failed many women — the unknown woman apparently forced to give birth in an airport toilet, unable to ask for assistance with her labour or on what to do with the baby, and the multiple women reportedly pulled off the plane for examinations," she said.
"Qatar should prohibit forced gynaecological exams and investigate and bring to account any individuals who authorised any demeaning treatment.
"It should also decriminalise sex outside of wedlock."
Qatar is not the only Gulf nation to criminalise consensual sexual relationships outside marriage, despite the human toll of such laws.
This week in Sharjah, one of the United Arab Emirates, police said a 30-year-old woman from the Philippines jumped to her death from a sixth-floor balcony when officers found her and a man together.
