One of the first court stories

Divorce rate rising 30% yearly over incompatibility

* 1,800 cases pending in East wing of city courts alone: a lawyer

By Uroos Ahmed

KARACHI: Rough estimates on the divorce rate in family courts shows that in the last 10 years numbers have gone up by 20 to 30 percent every year.

"This is mostly due to the fact that women are granted khula without the husband's consent," claimed Advocate Riaz Alam Khan. "There are over 1,800 divorce cases pending in the East wing of the city courts Karachi alone, which caters to a small area only," he said. Divorce cases that should take six months, usually go on for an average of two years.

Daily Times spoke to a large number of people filing for divorce or going through divorce proceedings at the city courts. A rough estimate indicated that every third to fourth family had a direct divorce case. "The abuse of the woman is not a major factor affecting the divorce rate as such anymore," said advocate Humaira. "In rape or harassment cases there may be some form of abuse but actual physical abuse is not very common anymore as women are more liberal now."

In her experience, Humaira said that the divorce cases she handled focused on compatibility. "In court people may give a lot of excuses and stories to get out of the marriage contract but in fact the real issues lie in the awareness of women and men these days."

Most young unmarried people who were questioned by Daily Times felt that divorce has become too easy a way to get out of a "bad deal" they made. A survey of the women filing for divorce showed that their primary reasons were being "unable to adjust" to family life. "I have been working on this marriage but the fact is that different backgrounds do bring about several issues which cannot be compromised upon," said Salma, a claimant for khula. She was married to Kamran for three years with no children and had a "non-friendly" marriage as described by Kamran. "It is important to have the compatibility element in any relationship, let alone marriage," he told Daily Times.

Another factor affecting the divorce rate appeared to be the female literacy rate. "Men need to earn a living and usually don't get the opportunity or time to study beyond middle school," said social worker Samra. "Their wives, on the other hand, are working as housemaids or sweepers and are thus interacting with the educated members of upper society compared to their husbands doing physical labour at a construction site." The women she came across felt the need to learn. "The women working as housemaids learn English from the children of the house, or the schools they work in or just generally from their friends in the same network."