Rumors that Tajik authorities are going to criminalize the so-called SMS-divorce reportedly do not correspond to the facts
Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service, known locally as Radio Ozodi, reported on November 28 that a group of lawmakers Tajik are thinking of a new draft law that would criminalize the SMS-divorce.
The draft law allegedly stipulates that the SMS-divorce will be punishable by up to five years in prison.
Deputy of the Majlisi Namoyandagon (Tajikistan’s lower chamber of parliament), who wanted to remain unnamed, told Radio Ozodi that the legislative initiative will concern only those cases when the SMS-divorce is sent without presence of witnesses and groundlessly.
Meanwhile, Muhammadato Sultonov, a spokesman for the Majlisi Namoyandagon, says lawmakers have not developed such a draft law. “It does not exist at all,” he said.
Recall, Tajikistan's Council of Ulema in April 2011 issued a fatwa banning the so-called SMS-divorce. The move came amid growing complaints that some Tajik men — working as migrant laborers in Russia — divorce their wives by sending a mobile-phone text message or just making a phone call.
SMS-divorces largely leave wives and children without any financial settlement because it's simply impossible to track down their husbands working in R
