RIYADH, 4 March 2003 — Divorce rates in Saudi Arabia are so alarming that a street in Riyadh, Abo Al-Aswad, has come to be known as the Divorcees’ Street.

How come so many divorced women are occupying the same neighborhood and perhaps sharing similar agonies in a society that frowns on its sisters in distress?

Are these women divorcees by choice, or are they victims of circumstances?

Sayyidaty, a sister publication of Arab News, prowled the street to listen to the women who live there, and noted how most of them are taking their fate in their stride.

Abo Saleh, a grocer in the street, said he was sympathetic to the situation of these women. “I always let them take goods and pay later, and they always do,” he says.

Local cab driver Abdulaal Saad said: “One of them wanted to take her son to hospital because he was very sick. I offered to drive her there and I waited for her to return home. Since then, I’ve been the divorced women’s favorite driver.”

Um Faisal, a 38-year-old mother of three, talked about her divorce. “The day my husband asked me to marry him, they told me he was a good man. That is how he appeared at the time. But that was the beginning of my long suffering.

“I learned that he was a drug addict, and he had many other problems. I could not tell my family about his drug addiction, so I had to go on living with him after I had my first baby. His three other kids from his previous wife were living with us as well, and we became so close that they continued living with me after the divorce. I tried to ignore his drug problem by concentrating more on the children, but things just got worse.

“He was spending so much money on his drugs that there was nothing left for us, so I started selling my jewelry to support myself. I knew if I continued living like this with him, I would die. So I was forced to leave him and ask for a divorce.

“When I moved here, I discovered that all my neighbors were divorced too. We share the same experience. There are no married women nearby because they are afraid we’ll steal their husbands.”

A.S. said that she did not notice anything strange about her husband at first.

“He started asking me to do indescribable things, but I did not give it much thought. But then he wanted to do more and more things that are rejected by Islam. So I went back to my family, though I didn’t tell anyone why. They would try to convince me to go back to him, and when I did he would ask me to do strange things again that I could not bring myself to do.

“I had to tell my brother’s wife so she could pass it on to my brother. My brother understood my situation and stood by me throughout the divorce. My husband agreed to divorce me on condition that I gave him my share of the house.

“This is the first time I hear about the large number of divorced women living in this street. I am always busy and I do not have the time to build any relationships. I only happen to live here because it is close to the school where I teach.”

Sheekah, who lives in the same street, says she was living a perfect life with her husband and children. “He was a good man and he never hesitated to give me what I needed,” she says. “But when his father died, his mother came to live with us .... His mother used to be the woman of the house and she insisted on continuing in that role.

“She began to poke her nose in everything. I lost control of my own house and children. I could not stand it, so I asked my husband for a divorce, and he agreed straight away.

“I love to socialize, so I made friends with my neighbors. I was very surprised to find out that we all shared the same fate.”