Family courts see spike in divorce cases
In the first month of the current year, a total of 352 cases were filed in the family courts of the Rawalpindi District by female petitioners for seeking a divorce, recovery of alimony, dower amount and dowry articles.
A total of 21 cases were also filed by male petitioners for conjugal rights, seeking the courts’ assistance to persuade their wives to come back home.
The family courts issued divorce decrees to 17 women while nine female respondents were ordered to go to their husbands. The courts also ordered 41 male respondents to pay alimony to their wives and children, and the dower amount and dowry articles to 11 women.
During January, 14 female petitioners were sent to Darul Aman for protection while seven women were allowed to go home from Darul Aman.
Similarly, the courts handed over the custody of five children to their mothers during the last month.
Sources said social media friendships and deceitful marriages remained major reasons behind marriage failures.
During the first month of the current year, sessions courts awarded capital punishment to five suspects, life imprisonment to four and one to 14 years imprisonment to nine suspects in cases pertaining to murder, robbery and terrorism.
Terming the friendships through social media applications including Facebook, WhatsApp and TikTok and unmatched marriages, as the major reasons for the increasing rate of divorce, Rawalpindi District Bar Association President and family law expert Faisal Khan Niazi has said that the practice of marrying on traditional values in the society was fast eroding.
“The centuries-old family system of our society has broken. Now every household prefers marriage in other families rather than in their relatives,” he said, adding that money was the sole criterion for marriage.
He claimed that social media was rapidly destroying the younger generation. “Now every household is afflicted by this disease and it has destroyed the joint family system,” he said.
The district bar official urged the citizens to keep their children away from social media.
Meanwhile, Advocate Sibtain Bukhari said: “In the past when cases were filed for divorce, the parties would usually reconcile in three to six months. But now the women file cases to seek divorce by way of khula to marry other men who accompany them to the courts.”
Women rights expert, Advocate Tayyaba Abbasi, said that the marriages for wealth and social status were causing problems.
“Due to the spread of social media, the divorce rate has increased in the last five years,” she explained.
Noreen Fayyaz, a 19-year-old divorcee, admitted that she first became friends with a boy on social media and then they both got married. She said that the marriage lasted for only two years. “I only got to know after marriage that he is father to a girl and is not a grade 16 officer but a driver and earns only Rs33,000 a month,” she said.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 1st, 2023.