50 வயதான சவுதி பெண் தனக்கு விவாகரத்து தரும்படி கெஞ்சல்

பெண்கள் தானாக விவாகரத்து செய்யமுடியாது போலிருக்கிறது. இவர் ஷாரியா கோர்ட்டில் தன்னை அடிக்கும் கணவனிடமிருந்து விடுவித்து தனக்கு விவாகரத்து தரும்படி கெஞ்சியிருக்கிறார்.

அந்த திருமணத்தின்போது கணவன் கொடுத்த பணத்தை திருப்பி தந்தால், விவாகரத்தாம். இந்த முதிய 50 வயதான பெண்ணிடம் எந்த பணமும் இல்லை.

அந்த நீதிமன்றம் மறுத்திவிட்டதால், கவர்னரிடம் கெஞ்சுகிறார்.

இந்த முஸ்லீம் பெண்களுக்காக வருந்துகிறேன்.

இந்தியாவில் இருக்கும் முஸ்லீம் பெண்களும் திருமணம் செய்யும் போது பார்த்து திருமணம் செய்வது நல்லது.

Woman Appeals to Governor for Help in Getting Her Divorce
Hayat Al-Ghamdi, Arab News

ABHA, 19 March 2008 — A woman in her 50s from the southern town of Khamis Mushayt is appealing to the region’s governor to intervene to break off her marriage to a man she says has abused her on numerous occasions.

“I have no option but to seek the mercy of the governor after the Shariah court rejected my plea for divorce from my husband who had been torturing me both mentally and physically,” Um Hassan told Arab News yesterday.

The woman claims the judge told her that her only option was “khula,” a form of divorce initiated by women that requires them to reimburse dowry paid to them by their husbands at the time of marriage.

But Um Hassan says that she has given the best years of her life to her husband and shouldn’t have to pay him anything now that he considers her past her prime.

“I told the judge ‘why should I return the dowry while my husband enjoyed all my youth and now that I am old he throws me away as a worn-out piece of cloth?’ It is my right that he protect me or divorce me honorably,” she said.

Um Hassan is currently living with her elderly mother and her husband has not allowed her to see her two daughters since she ran away from him eight months ago. The judge declined her request to see her girls, saying she’ll just have to wait until they’ve grown up and have been married. Um Hassan has a son, too, but she says he is also abusive.

Um Hassan claims that she fled because her husband would beat her. She claims that one of her daughters threatened suicide because of the domestic abuse erupting around her. When she went to the police, she was told that the police could do nothing because she was a woman coming to them without her mahram — her legal male guardian, who is the same person from whom she was seeking protection.

The police, she said, simply told her she had to go directly to the Board of Investigations and Prosecution, the Saudi equivalent of a district attorney’s office.

Hadi Al-Yami, a legal analyst for the governmental Human Rights Commission in Asir, said the commission could not help her until the system to which she is appealing fails to deliver her rights.

“We can help her only if the regulations are not implemented by the authorities or orders are violated,” he said.

Al-Yami said that under Saudi law a woman must complain within three days of the abuse for the case to be valid. He also said that she doesn’t have automatic custody rights because her girls are above seven. In custody disputes, Saudi family law heavily favors fathers once children are over seven years old.

Regarding the unwillingness by the police to help, Al-Yami told Arab News that the cops could not assist with women’s complaints without the women being accompanied by their official male guardian. And in the case where the problem arises with the guardian, the woman must go to higher ups to seek reprieve, which could involve a Shariah court taking custody of her, even in the case of a woman in her 50s.