Wife sharing, excessive belching, sexual extortion: bizarre reasons for divorce in Iraq

Shafaq News / After looking into numerous divorce cases in Iraqi courts, Shafaq News agency's correspondent came up with a list of "strange" divorce cases.

Lawyer and legal expert on family issues and domestic violence Ali Latif al-Juraisi described what he noticed during his work,"In one of the cases, a husband filmed his wife forcibly in an intimate position and threatened to share the tape unless she waives her rights in full," indicating that the husband actually followed through on his threat and shared the video after she refused.

"Another husband attempted to get his wife, his friend, and himself into an intimate relationship after forcing her to have sex with his friend; however, the wife fled to her family to save herself."

"Another husband tried to share his wife with his three brothers because of their poor financial situation, which led her to flee and reach her family, who went to a court in Baghdad to divorce her," the lawyer continued.

"The other case involved a wife who demanded a divorce because her husband burps and drinks soup loudly."

The Supreme Judicial Council published a statistic on divorces in May this year, which reached more than 5,200 cases in Iraqi governorates.

"There are many cases in which the tribal authority intervenes to try to reconcile or reach an agreement before going to court," legal expert Safaa al-Lami told Shafaq News agency.

According to social researcher Amani al-Shammari, "Social media platforms have increased divorce rates."

"One of the reasons for the said increase is early marriage, lack of understanding and awareness of both sides, economic conditions, and family interventions," she noted, "there is a new strange phenomenon in the Iraqi society, which is filming the wife in inappropriate positions or clothes and then threatened her with it."

"Civil society organizations shall organize educational courses and seminars to reduce divorce rates in Iraq."