50,000 divorce-seeking petitions in last 3 months; extra marital affairs, torture main reasons
The incidence of divorce (dissolution of marriage) is increasing significantly in the city as 50,000 divorce-seeking petitions were recorded at the Dhaka City Corporation’s (DCC) marriage and divorce section in last three months.
Now women seek divorce more than men for various reasons, said DCC officials.
Seventy percent of the petitions recorded in marriage registrar offices (Kazi Office) and the courts in the city have been filed by women with allegation of their husbands’ extra marital affairs, tortures and rude behaviors, said administrative officials of DCC’s ten zonal offices.
The zonal offices receive all the petitions from Kazi offices or courts.
Muhammad Mafizul Islam, legal officer of the DCC section, told The Daily Star that most of the divorce cases have been filed with the allegations of extra marital affairs and offensive behaviors, dowry and torture. A handful number of spouses are seeking divorce on ground of impotency, he added.
“Women are also issuing divorce notice on their husbands through the DCC’s Shalishi Parishad,” said Masudur Rahman, another legal officer of DCC.
“In the last one month, we have issued 500 notices to husbands asking them to show cause for alleged offenses,” he said.
Zonal office-2 recorded 2,500 divorces while zonal office-5 documented 2,000 from January to September this year.
Administrative officer of zone-2, Muhammad Reazul Hossain said women filed 116 divorce petitions out of 177 alone in September. In the entire year of 2008, zone-2 recorded 587 divorce cases, he added.
Abu Naser Kochi, administrative officer of Zone-5, said the trend of divorce sought by women is definitely increasing day by day. In October this year, women filed 365 divorce petitions while the number of total cases was 517, he said.
Since August 2006 to December 2009, 1,646 divorce cases were filed, of them 1,152 were filed by wives and rest 633 by husbands in zone-5 of DCC.
The lawyers dealing with such cases said the trend of extra marital affairs is increasing and both wives and husbands are filing divorce cases on the same ground.
On an average, at least 30 women every day come to the Women Repression Prevention Cell (Nari Nirjatan Protirodh Cell) under the women and children affairs ministry at the city’s Eskaton.
They mainly come to the lawyers for counseling and legal support on conjugal problems involving separation, refusal to financially support the family, divorce without paying den-mohar, polygamy, women’s and female child’s property rights, said Advocate Pervin Aktar Khan of the cell.
According to the cell record of 2008 and 2009, a total of 4,436 women filed complaints with family problems, 2,781 filed complaints of physical torture by husbands, 1,472 for second marriage and 1,109 for divorce on grounds of husbands abandoning the family for a long time.
Ayesha Khanam, president of Bangladesh Mahila Parishad, said the trend of divorce sought by women is increasing these days. “Only a few years ago this sort of attitude by women was unthinkable in our society,” she said.
“Now many women have decent jobs, they are self-reliant and aware of their rights. So, if they sense that the partnership is a miss-match, they immediately seek relief from it,” Ayesha said. “Problem starts when one of the separated spouses refuses to take responsibility of the kids,” she added.
“Husband and wife have the right to take decision of divorce or separation, but they should think about the fate of their children who suffer most in the process,” said Prof Mehtab Khanam of psychology department of Dhaka University.
“In case of a divorce in a family, we should be truthful to our children and tell them that divorce or separation is a social and legal experience which may occur due to various reasons but they (children) are always loveable to both parents,” Prof Khanam said.
