One in four Saudi marriages end in divorce: Report
Nearly one in four marriages in the conservative Muslim kingdom of Saudi Arabia ends in divorce, a newspaper quoted the Justice Ministry as saying.
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Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: Nearly one in four marriages
in the conservative Muslim kingdom of Saudi Arabia ends in divorce,
a newspaper quoted the Justice Ministry as saying.
For 105,066 marriage contracts registered in 2005, 24,000 divorce
cases were recorded by the ministry, Asharq al-Awsat newspaper said,
quoting a ministry report on Saturday.
Officials at the Justice Ministry could not be reached for
comment but the statistics come amid intense debate over the surge
in divorce rates in the birthplace of Islam.
The high court in the Red Sea port of Jeddah said earlier
this year divorce rates in the city had risen by 60 percent over
the last two years against 39 percent in the capital Riyadh and
18 percent in the eastern province, home to a Shi'ite minority.
Saudi Arabia, which follows an austere form of Sunni Islam,
allows men to repudiate their wives.
''It is impossible to have healthy relationships in Saudi Arabia.
The laws have given men full authority while women are deprived of
their rights and freedom,'' rights activist Wajiha al-Howeidar told.
While a few women have grown up in relatively liberal homes and
refrain from marriage at an early age, many see in marriage a way
out of protective parental homes, al-Howeidar said.
''They end up in arranged marriages where there are no affinities
and no romance,'' she said.
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