Divorced against their will.

last updated 8 January 2015

Saudi Arabia

Ebtihal Mubarak

Divorce is always sad, but it’s saddest when neither spouse wants to part, said Ebtihal Mubarak in Riyadh’s Arab News. Here in Saudi Arabia, the courts recently ruled that a divorce can be forced upon a couple if the wife’s father insists. Appalled feminist activists are now petitioning the king to intervene. The women are championing the cause of Fatima al-Timani, a 34-year-old woman who has been married for three years. Her father claimed that her husband, Mansour al-Timani, lied about his tribal background in order to marry her. The father brought and won a divorce suit. But Fatima, who loves her husband, refused to return to her father. She is now in jail with her baby, separated from her 2-year-old. Such a situation goes against “Islamic law, which is the law of the kingdom.” Shariah does not prohibit marriage between members of different tribes. More fundamentally, though, what’s at stake is women’s rights. It’s a huge step backward if a married mother in her 30s can still be “controlled by her father.”