JEDDAH: In a case underscoring the plight of women in abusive relationships, a 25-year-old mother of two, who was brought up in an orphanage and married off by the Ministry of Social Affairs, has been struggling to secure a divorce from her abusive husband of five years.
The Ministry of Social Affairs found the woman a husband, also an orphan, housed in a government-run orphanage. However, soon after the marriage, the husband began physically abusing the woman and threw her out of the family home.
“I complained many times. The Ministry of Social Affairs put me through this and have left me alone,” said the woman who asked for her name not to be published. “They could have put an end to it before we had kids, but they preferred not to interfere telling me to go to court,” she added.
The woman’s husband is currently in prison for bribery and is expected to be released soon. “He will not let me stay here in our apartment when he comes out. It surprises me that the Ministry of Social Affairs was giving him SR4,000 a month even though he had a job. He was also offered a car and an apartment. I’ve not received anything even though the kids are with me,” she said.
The problems facing women who want to get divorced or are already divorced are many. In some cases women find difficulty getting relatives, fathers or brothers to accompany them to court. In most cases, husbands fail to turn up at hearings causing further delays. Some husbands demand their wives give them huge amounts of cash to divorce them; many women are also embroiled in difficult custody battles.
The percentage of divorces in the Kingdom in 2007 rose to 60 percent; as a result, the Saudi Divorce Initiative submitted a series of recommendations on how to tackle the problem to the Ministry of Justice. Although the recommendations were submitted 10 months ago, the ministry has so far failed to respond.
In addition, a number of governmental bodies including the Ministry of Social affairs, the Shoura Council, the National Dialogue, and the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR)expressed their support for the recommendations at the Saudi Divorce Initiative Forum, which was held in Dammam last November.
Haifa Khalid, a Saudi journalist who came up with the idea for the Saudi Divorce Initiative, expressed her disappointment that the Ministry of Justice has taken so long to respond. “Ten months is not a short time. Should we wait for a year?” she said.
Khalid Al-Fakhri, supervisor of Administrative and Financial Affairs at the National Society of Human Rights, said the body is currently studying the recommendations and would announce support for clauses that are in accordance with the NSHR’s goals.
Asked about the contributions of the Human Rights Commission, Khalid said the body has failed to cooperate in spite of being asked to several times. “We expected their cooperation as this project is a national one and many bodies expressed their support to us,” he said.
