Increasing number of Syrian refugee women in the Western world are seeking divorce from their oppressive husbands!

 “Improve your behavior or lose” 

This is the message that the Western World and the young Syrian women would like to give to the anti-female Syrian men. Increasingly more Syrian refugee women who have been relocated to Western, liberal, and secular societies are seeking a divorce from their oppressive husbands. While many abusive husbands and their conservative societies would take it as an offense, western social activists are celebrating the events. They want to save the oppressed Arab and Muslim women from their husbands.

Syrian women and their changed thinking

The Palestinian-American scholar Lila Abu Lughod has penned a book called Do Muslim women need Saving? In it, she states that the West is interfering with the Arab and Muslim world and teaching the women wrong things. She states that they are invading into their world in the name of rescuing the women form radical Islam. She condemns the western mindset in it.

A young Syrian girl [Source: The Conversation]

But Syrian women who are now in the western world as refugees are taking the advantage of their changing society. They are now seeking a divorce from their oppressive and abusive husbands to whom they were forced to marry when they were small girls.

More on these Syrian women and their lives

Most of these Syrian women come from rural backgrounds. In those places, patriarchy is predominant and most of the laws in the Arab world also deprive women of their basic rights including alimony and child custody after divorce. The Islamic society is not with them and hence they are unable to divorce their husbands in their own land.

Syrian women [Source: Syrian Observer]

But now with the changed scenarios and more supportive laws of the west, more of these women are seeking freedom from their collapsed relationships. In Syria, the element of shame was enforced in their young brains and hence they used to bear all the insult silently. Thus though in Islam, divorce by a woman is allowed, it is frowned upon by society. Similar things also are present in the urban areas of major cities of India. No great difference! Most of the women who go for this divorce in Syria and the Arab world are labeled as morally characterless.

The lawyer and her experience

A female Arabic-speaking lawyer who handles these cases in Germany said:

“I have never seen so many people from one nationality want to get divorced,”

She added:

“I’ve never seen a social structure break down like it has among Syrians.”

German feminists [Source: Syrian Obersver]

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These women are not away from their conservative relatives and neighbors and can go ahead for a no-fault divorce easily. They are feeling it save in the western world and know that their rights and decisions would be protected and respected by law there. They are also aware that their children will be well taken care of during the whole process.

Sweden too has pro-feminist policies for women. Backed by it, Syrian refugees who have escaped there are also going ahead for divorces. The Syrian government has realized its societal problems and is amending the laws accordingly.