Peregraf- Ghamgin Mohammed
Debt, onerous rent payments, and lack of regular income caused Karwan Ali’s home life to fall apart, resulting in two failed marriages. He says that the main victims are his children.
Waiting on the outcome of his second divorce case at Sulaymaniyah’s courthouse, the 35-year-old government worker told his story to Peregraf.
“The reason for the dissolution of my two families is the poor financial system,” he said, adding that his salary is insufficient to pay rent and meet the daily needs of his children.
He lamented that his problems are only getting worse and that he is falling deeper into debt with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) missing salary payments.
“Because of this, there was fighting and chaos in our house every day, so my wife went to her father’s and sent me a request to become separated by the court,” Ali said.
Ali is the father of two young boys, one of whom will now go live with his soon-to-be ex-wife and another with his mother.
His divorce is part of a broader trend: In 2021, there were 11,699 divorces officially recorded in the Kurdistan Region and more were made informally outside the courts, according to judicial council statistics. In other words, approximately 32 married couples split each day.
There were 8,144 divorces in 2020 and more than 80,000 divorces since 2010.
Sulaimaniyah governorate had the most cases, followed by Erbil and Duhok governorates.
Last year, there were 54,837 marriages, yielding a 21 percent divorce rate.
"Marriage betrayal through mobile and social media and the poor economic situation result in the lion's share of divorces," said Shokhan Ahmed, a lawyer and member of the Family Reconciliation Committee at Sulaymaniyah Court told Peregraf.
Ahmed said that other reasons cited for divorce include incompatibility and misunderstandings related to family care, not educating children, child marriage, forced marriage, and interference from relatives.
A 25-year-old woman named Dunia told Peregraf that her marriage broke down because of flirtations she had with another man over social media. She said that they connected over Instagram, first becoming friends but over time they fell in love.
"I don't know how it changed to love. We sent pictures for each other a few times and we met outside once," she told Peregraf.
"One day my husband looked at my phone and found out about our relationship, so he decided to separate from me and there was no excuse for continuing my marriage,” Dunia said, adding that there had been no problems with her husband before that.
"After the separation, my beloved closed all his social media accounts and changed the number of his mobile phones and I didn't see him," she said. “I was a victim of my own ignorance.”
Dunia added that she hoped her divorce would serve as a lesson to others not to make the same mistakes.
Economist Barham Kawa told Peregraf that the difficult economic conditions in the Kurdistan Region are taking a toll on marriages and families.
"Each family determines the monthly income it requires for all of its needs. When this is reduced for any reason, problems arise within families over time and separation follows,” Kawa said.
Divorces are not just happening among young couples, but older people are also splitting from their longtime partners.
Sakar Aziz, a social researcher, believes that older couples divorce because of festering problems that happened earlier in their marriage and can now be dealt with because society is more open.
People have become more familiar with their rights and "want to get rid of the injustice they face," Aziz argued.
But couples who marry at a young age account for most of divorces in the Kurdistan Region, said Ahmed, the lawyer, suggesting that some who marry very young do not understand what they are getting into and balk when confronted with the realities of married life.
“They are not at that level of responsibility and cannot control, forgive, and solve their problems and decide to go their separate ways," Aziz concurred.
Under both Iraqi and KRG law, either partner is allowed to apply for divorce, which is then decided on by a judge on the basis of the law and justifications from both sides.
Ahmed, who sits on the Reconciliation Committee at the Sulaimaniyah Court, said that family counseling programs should be strengthened to help couples work through their problems and for young couples to better understand the challenges of marriage.
"The centers that exist now belong to some organizations and are not adequate,” Ahmed said. “It requires a lot of work and regulation under the law. It needs more education and to be integrated into the community as a whole.”