A prominent law professor has said that as much as 70 percent of pending court cases in the Kingdom are related to divorce, “khula” (disengagement lawsuits filed by women) and annulments.

There were 528 khula cases filed by Saudi wives against their husbands last year, local media said.

Jeddah courts registered the highest number of khula cases last year, with 333 such cases, followed by Riyadh courts at 108, according to judicial data covering courts in Jeddah, Makkah, Madinah, Riyadh, Ahsa, Dammam and Taif.

Omar Al-Khuli, a law professor at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, attributed the increase in the number of such cases in Jeddah to several factors, including women’s refusal to respond to their husbands’ demand to be full-time stay-at-home mothers.

“Women in Jeddah feel less socially embarrassed to file for khula since they live amid a multi-cultural society in the Makkah region. Women in other regions, however, are reluctant to ask for disengagement no matter how unhappy they are or how badly they are treated,” he Al-Khuli said.

Courts also received requests for marriage annulments due to “social incompatibility,” a local daily reported quoting judicial data.

“The widespread use of social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp has also contributed to the increase in the number of disengagement lawsuits,” he said.

Abdulaziz Al-Dakhail, professor of social services at King Saud University, has called for the implementation of measures to streamline and minimize the number of khula cases in court.