MP and lawyer Shukriyah al-Mehamid has told Al-Watan that she wants family law articles No 116 and 117, which relate to arbitrary divorce, amended. This will remove the injustice of arbitrary divorce, which women suffer from, she said. Mehamid said she has just finished a study which looks at amending the two articles, and the study will be presented to parliament in order to prepare a new law.
"Divorce is a horrible weapon that threatens women and it constitutes a violence which is practiced over her, as it solely follows man's will and it is without specific reason. The compensation in these cases doesn’t suit the emotional and psychological damage caused”, the lawyer said.
"If one of the marriage contract articles is the acceptance of the two parties (as mentioned in article No 5 of family law), then it is an ‘agreement’ between the man and the woman, thus, terminating the contract should also be according to both parties' will or to a decision the judge may make if only one of the parties wants the divorce. The other party deserves unconditional compensation in this case.”
Judicial sources estimated that there were more than 40.000 arbitrary divorce cases in Syria in 2013. That is 120 cases each day, and half of the total were in Damascus and its suburbs.
The daily rate of arbitrary divorce in other governorates was as follows: 20 cases in Aleppo, 10 in Homs, three in Idlib, four in Tartous and six in Lattakia.
The sources said that 30 percent of arbitrary divorce cases were among minors and most of the divorced women were between 25-30 years old.
Translated and edited by The Syrian Observer
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