Disclaimer: I want to preface this post by stating that this is definitely a heavier topic than I would normally write about, and some may have some sensitivities to these issues and content, but I think it’s important to be aware of which is why I'm sharing.
Kingdom Tower is a landmark in Riyadh. You may have noticed it in a previous Instagram post of mine. It’s has a mall, with high end luxury stores - Cartier, Gucci, Chanel, Etro…it’s all there. What’s really unique about the mall is the women’s only floor. I was reading up on it before our first visit. One article struck me as it was the first time I read about divorce in KSA, stating divorced women wanting a place to be social outside of their home. Given their financial situation after divorce they may be ashamed of their home, living with family, or just want to go somewhere to get their mind off things.
This piqued my curiosity, so I starting doing some research. I was surprised to find that divorce is relatively common in KSA, at over 30%. Even with it being severely looked down upon it’s not against Shari’a law. Even more surprising is how easy it is for men to divorce women. There are two types of divorce in Saudi Arabia. The first is Talaq, in which a man declares divorce. The other is Khula, a divorce at the insistence of the wife. I should note that these are specific to KSA and Sunni Law. The different schools under Sunni and Shia have different laws when it comes to divorce.
With Talaq Saudi men are allowed to divorce their wives without any legal reasoning. In fact men don’t even have to pay for the divorce. Historically, a man could divorce a woman reciting the divorce call three times - Talaq, Talaq, Talaq. After saying it, or even texting it, the couple is divorced.
Saudi women are unable to obtain a divorce without the consent of their husbands, who remain their guardians throughout divorce proceedings A woman must go to court to petition for a divorce, or Khula. In this case, she has to return her dowry and pay her husband a certain amount of money to cover anything he spent on her for the duration of the marriage. This explains why some women often do not have the means to cover the cost of living and end up living with family.
(Side note, I wanted to end each sentence in the above two paragraphs with exclamation points and multiple at that, but I restrained myself.)
According to statistics released by the Ministry of Justice, there was an increase in the number of Khula cases last year. The number of cases all over the Kingdom totaled 2,033 cases, but Khula only makes up about 5% of total divorce cases. So either women aren’t initiating as much as men and/or they aren’t being granted Khula by the courts.
Some speculate the reasons for divorce rate. First, unrelated men and women are not allowed to interact under Islamic law. Often marriages are arranged. Couples rarely get to know each other, or even meet, before marriage. In modern day, marriages will have a tough time succeeding without establishing a good foundation. There are some ridiculous stories I’ve read, one in particular about a man divorcing his wife on their wedding night because they had a pre-nup stating that she wouldn’t post any wedding photos on social media and he caught her posting some on Snapchat. I was relaying this to J and he said "they probably had an arranged marriage and wanted an easy way out of it.' That thought never occurred to me, but the idea is completely plausible given the practice still exists in the 21st century.
Tasneem Alsultan is a wedding photographer and artist. Her story begins like many Saudi women who married too young, in an arranged marriage and without knowing their partner. She thought they would eventually grow to love one another, but it never happened. Ten years later, and after having two daughters, she asked for a divorce. She turned her own experience and work into something positive for Saudi women, creating an online exhibition called Saudi Tales of Love, almost an anthology of concepts of love and marriage—those who are single or divorced, married for decades, widowed or even remarried.
While some traditionalists say that young people today are too quick to divorce because they don’t respect the sanctity of marriage, others say that the increase is because women are starting to speak up if they are abused by their husbands. In the past, the stigma against divorce may have convinced them to keep quiet. Saudi Arabia’s Justice Ministry said its courts received 1,498 domestic violence cases during the past Islamic calendar year, including torture of wives and children and abuse of one of the parents. There were also cases in which brothers were found to be guilty of torturing their sisters. The majority of cases were husbands and brothers beating their wives and sisters, humiliating them, locking them inside rooms, taking away their rights, stealing salaries of wives and sisters and neglect of children and wives. Obviously these are not all cases of husbands abusing their wives. Sadly, all women can be affected by violence from their brothers, husband and sons. And these are just the reported cases. Many instances go undocumented for fear of the shame that these women might face.
Even though they may be enduring some form of abuse, there is reason why women aren’t asking for a divorce. The Saudi family law courts give fathers full-time custody over the children when girls are seven and boys are nine. When they turn 18, boys can choose whether to live with the mother or the father but it is up to the father to let his daughters live with the mother. This goes back to the guardianship men have over women in KSA. I can imagine this is a reason heavily weighing on why women don’t leave their husbands, knowing they’ll lose their children.
In an Arab News article a son recounts the mental and physical abuse his mother suffered from. He states, his mother never filed for divorce because she knew she would lose her boys. And because she wasn’t well educated she believed she would never find a job that would pay her enough to sustain her sons’ education and upbringing. She put up with the abuse and an unhappy marriage so she could stay with her children.
Tasneem, mentioned above, was granted custody of her girls by her ex-husband with the agreement that her father and brothers be involved in raising them. Plus, she was only given $100/month of child support per child, so she needed some help from her family. There are many stories of women being completely cut off from all communication with their children and children being moved away to live with extended family, making it impossible for mothers to see them. It’s infuriating and heartbreaking to think about anyone going through this.
The bright spot is that the National Society for Human Rights was successful in helping some divorced mothers win custody of their children last year. The exact number of cases won is not documented, but the NSHR states that the number of cases they received in 2016 was less than the previous year, declining from 151 to 135. It’s thought that the fall in number is attributed to increasing awareness among women of their rights, with many of them directly approaching courts without involving NSHR.
Sadly, none of these issues I've touched on seem to be a big social concern here, but why would they when women barely have any rights? Hopefully with greater awareness of what other women have faced, education of individual rights, and increased bravery more Saudi women will be able to take action for the better in their lives and still be a primary figure in their children’s.