Report: 20% of marriages end in divorce in Iraq

The Supreme Judicial Council of Iraq said nearly 20 per cent of marriages in the country end in divorce, Anadolu reported.

The council said in a statement on Sunday that Iraqi courts recorded more than 6,000 divorce cases in March and 31,000 marriages.

According to the statement, more than 4,000 divorce cases took place outside the court and were later documented.

Iraqi lawyer Nasser Al-Kinani told Al-Hurra TV channel that “divorce cases are spreading in an unprecedented manner” adding that last November, the number of monthly divorce cases exceeded 9,000 cases.

He criticised the Iraqi statistical system for not revealing information about the age of the spouses, their economic status, the duration of marriages, and other information necessary to “understand the reason for the increase in this phenomenon”.

According to the lawyer, married couples “are subjected to severe pressures during the marriage preparation period, including economic and social pressures that cast their shadow later on in the already fragile marriage.”

Social researcher, Wiam Hatem Jaafar, said one of the main reasons for divorce is “shared housing with the husband’s family” exacerbated by “poor economic conditions”.

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