KHUJAND, September 11, 2009, Asia-Plus — Some labor migrants from the northern Sughd province have begun divorce proceedings via cellular phone, Ms. Matloubakhon Sattorova, the chairperson of the Sughd committee for family and women’s affairs, said in an interview with Asia-Plus.
According to her, this practice has seriously affected the state of women in the province. “Cases of divorce via the cellular phone are still not so frequent; however, the situation is showing an upward tendency,” Sattorova said.
She noted that more and more men from Sughd, working as labor migrants in Russia, were marrying other women and divorcing their wives in Tajikistan via cellular phone “despite the fact that their marriages in Tajikistan are officially registered.”
According to Islamic tradition, a couple is considered divorced after a husband cites the word “Talaq” three times in front of his wife.
Ms. Sattorova noted that many women were forced to return of their parents’ houses while sometimes, they even had nowhere to go.
“We have consulted representatives from the Shuroi Ulamo (Council of Ulema) on this subject and they said that it is acceptable to divorce via cellular hone; just witness is needed while a man repeats “Talaq” three times by phone,” said she, “I think this negatively impacts state of women and hurts their rights.”
Sattorova added that they planned to apply to the Shuroi Ulamo with proposal to ban divorce via phone.
In the meantime, clerics in some countries allow the divorce via text. Thus an article by Eric J. Taylor entitled “Cellular Phone Divorces – Malaysia Permits Husband to Divorce their Wives via Text Message” says a Malaysian Syariah Court allowed a husband to begin divorce proceedings by sending a text message on his cellular phone to his wife. This ruling generated an intense debate throughout the country, and initially the Malaysia government rejected the ruling outright. But later the government accepted the decision, and future divorces through the short message system (SMS) of cellular phones will be permitted.
However, Tajik clerics consider that divorce via text is unacceptable. Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service reported on September 8 that the head of the Wedding and Divorce Department in Tajikistan”s Rasht district, Gulob Nizomov, noted that more and more Tajik men, working as labor migrants in Russia are divorcing their wives by text messaging. Local citizen Rukniddin Sharifov told RFE/RL that his daughter married in January and just four months after the wedding she received a text message from her husband in Russia, who denounced their marriage. Mullah Mavlavi Zikrulloh acknowledged that in Islam it is enough for a man to repeat “Talaq” three times in front of his wife to end the marriage, however, he says, divorce via text is unacceptable. According to him, it is not possible to verify that the message was sent by the owner of the telephone. In addition, he says that the “divorce words” should be pronounced in the presence of witnesses, to whom the man has to explain the reasons for his decision.
