Khula rate spikes in Sindh

Divorce through courts up by 40 per cent approaching 16,000 cases a year

Karachi: Saima Danish, daughter of an affluent property dealer of Defence Housing Authority married Nauman Siddiqui son of a well-off industrialist, also from the DHA in January 2020. This arranged marriage, however, could not last for two years, as in August this year, Saima moved a petition to the family court, for Khula under the Dissolution of Marriage Act of 1939.

The main reason cited in the family suit, filed in a civil court of the district south, was that the husband was not properly maintaining the wife and her in-laws, from day one, and kept on dictating how she should live in their home. A doctor by profession, Saima could not adjust as her husband kept siding with his parents and sisters, which, according to pleadings of the suit amounted to cruelty on the part of her husband. The couple, despite having a son from wedlock, which often tends to soften behaviours, could not normalise the relationship.

Like Saima, thousands of women every year seek to end their marriage in Sindh by filing civil suits for dissolution of marriage. Figures of institution and disposal of such cases in district courts submitted to the Sindh High Court show a significant increase in the number of women seeking a divorce.

The number of women wanting to end their marriages in 2021 increased by a whopping 40 per cent or 4,646 as 16,287 women in the province moved courts seeking a divorce. In 2020, around 11,639 women across the province applied for divorce.

Till October 31, 2022, the number of women seeking divorce has already crossed the total figure of last year to reach 16,769.

In 2020, the cases disposed of were 14,448 while 19,832 cases were decided in 2021. This year till October 31, the number of divorce cases decided has reached 15,982. All the laws and rules relating to marriage, maintenance and custody of the child come under the purview of the Family Laws Ordinance 1961, informs Advocate Tariq Hamza.

The grounds for seeking divorce by women were enumerated in the DOM Act 1939, which include desertion by the husband for four years, failure to maintain for two years, husband’s contracting a polygamous marriage in contravention of established legal procedures, husband’s imprisonment for seven years, husband’s failure to perform marital obligations for three years, husband’s continued impotence from the time of the marriage, husband’s insanity for two years, or his serious illness, wife’s exercise of her option of puberty if she was contracted into marriage by any guardian before the legal age defined for the purpose, husband’s cruelty (including physical or other mistreatment, unequal treatment of co-wives), or any other ground recognised as valid for the dissolution of marriage.

Through an amendment in DOM Act 1939 in 2019, further grounds for seeking divorce were added. Now the wife can also seek divorce if her husband habitually assaults her, or makes her life miserable by cruelty of conduct, even if such conduct does not amount to physical ill-treatment, associates with women of evil repute who lead an infamous life, attempts to force her to lead an immoral life, disposes of her property or prevents her exercising her legal rights over it, or obstructs her in the observance of her religious profession or practice.

There are always merits and demerits to everything and the law is no exception, says Advocate Zahida Anwar explaining that with the addition of more grounds in 2019, the rate of divorce at least in Sindh has increased significantly. The addition of cruelty of conduct to the list of grounds for seeking a judicial divorce (Khula), besides attempts of disposing of the property of the wife, has prompted women, especially those belonging to working-class and affluent families, to initiate legal proceedings against their husbands.

“During my practice spreading over more than two decades, I have noted that women living in the posh area of Clifton and Defence and well-off neighbourhoods of Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Nazimabad or Garden tend to approach court more than those living in poor neighbourhoods of Orangi, Korangi or Landhi,” she says, explaining that more cases for dissolution of marriage are filed in district courts of Karachi South, Central and East than District West or Korangi. The women seeking divorce are mostly working, or professional and are financially independent.

Zahida says that dissolution of marriage mostly has pre-trial and trial stages. In the pretrial stage, the court normally issues notice to a husband intimating that the legal proceedings for dissolution of marriage have been initiated. Normally, the relations between the couple have been so strained that the husband in most cases, instead of contesting the grounds, agrees to a divorce.

In some cases, proceedings are withdrawn with the court facilitating a reconciliation, but that rarely happens. In the case of a husband’s divorcing his wife at the pretrial stage, then the proceeding for the maintenance of the child (children) and the mother begin, with the mother claiming a certain amount of money per month for the upbringing of the children.

The second stage also involves a dispute over dowry. The amount of dowry (Haq-e-Maher) is either pardoned by the wife or paid by the husband. However, proceedings for the return of dowry articles (Jahaiz) which sometimes include moveable and immovable property, take years to conclude.

Women, normally incline to keep the maintenance proceedings alive until the children reach adolescence, as they need more amount of maintenance with the increase in expenditure, incurring on the children over the years. Proceedings for custody of children under the Guardian and Ward Act, is a natural offshoot of the dissolution proceedings, says Zahida adding, that even the judicial divorce (Khula) proves a costly and cumbersome affair for the husband. It is believed that the wife gave up her several rights for seeking a divorce.