Rahma Shanzour

Yemen – The repercussions of the conflict in Yemen are no longer confined to the military field or the humanitarian tragedy; they have gone beyond that to reshape the social reality of the Yemeni family, where poverty, unemployment, and deteriorating living conditions have become factors threatening marital stability in an unprecedented manner.

Field and judicial indicators point to a notable increase in divorce cases involving women in Yemen, amid an ongoing conflict since 2015 and the economic collapse and social disintegration it has caused. This rise, according to observers, is not just a number in court records, but a reflection of intertwined complexities that have reshaped the very concept of the family.

Divorce is no longer a social phenomenon in the traditional sense; it has become a direct reflection of the forced economic and legal transformations imposed by the conflict. In this context, divorce has become for many women a "last resort" to escape extreme poverty, severe restrictions on movement and work, or domestic violence that has escalated in the absence of any real deterrent.

The features of this crisis are evident in stories of families exhausted by living costs, others whose marital relationships ended after just a few months due to lack of work and stable income, while many families found themselves unable to balance providing basic needs and paying for housing and treatment.

"Rising prices ruined my marriage"

Sahar Khaled, 26 years old, never imagined that her marriage would end in divorce due to the deteriorating living situation and her husband's inability to bear the burdens of life and daily expenses.

In a modest home, Sahar Khaled recounts the details of the three years she lived with her husband, which began with relative stability before turning into a long series of daily suffering. She says: "A young man proposed to me, and I agreed. I lived with him for three years and gave birth to a child a year after marriage. At first, our financial situation was acceptable, but our lives changed completely after economic conditions deteriorated."

As unemployment spread and living costs rose, her husband began a daily search for a job opportunity, moving between labor markets, shops, and restaurants, without succeeding in securing a stable source of income. She adds: "Every day our suffering increased. We could no longer provide our children's basic needs: milk, diapers, even medicine. Rent accumulated, and buying a gas cylinder became a burden beyond our ability, until we reached a point we could no longer bear."

In a tone dominated by sorrow, Sahar Khaled affirms that divorce was not a choice she wanted, but "a natural result of the harsh pressures that besieged the family from all sides."

Five months and everything ended

Asma Mohammed (21 years old) needed only five months to realize that the life she dreamed of after marriage would not be as she imagined. She quickly found herself in daily crises and repeated disputes, ending with her requesting khul' after losing hope in the continuation of the relationship. She says: "My marriage period was very difficult, because my husband did not understand the meaning of marital responsibility, and was unable to provide household expenses or basic life necessities."

She explains that her husband did not have a stable job or a steady source of income, which affected their lives from the first months of marriage. "At first I tried to be patient and adapt, thinking things would improve over time, but problems increased day by day."

As living pressures and ongoing disputes escalated, she says she reached a point where she felt that continuing the marriage had become a psychological burden beyond her capacity to bear, so she finally resorted to khul' and ended the relationship.

Worrying judicial figures

Judicial figures reveal the scale of transformations in the reality of the Yemeni family during the war years. Judicial sources in Taiz reported that cases of divorce and khul' filed by women have doubled compared to before the conflict, as a result of worsening economic and living conditions.

They affirmed that "the most common causes of divorce are the husband's inability to provide maintenance and family needs, followed by domestic violence, which has escalated due to living and psychological pressures."

According to the same sources, the East Taiz Court recorded about 200 divorce cases in just one month of the current year – an indicator reflecting the scale of pressures facing Yemeni families and the direct impact of the economic crisis on marital stability.

In this context, Yemeni lawyer Amal Al‑Sabri says: "The divorce rate in Yemen has seen a significant increase in recent years, especially amid ongoing war and conflicts," noting that this increase has become noticeable in various cities, and more so in Taiz.

She explains that divorce cases are not limited to out‑of‑court separations, but also include an increase in requests to annul marriage contracts before family and personal status courts, where courts are witnessing a growing turnout of women wishing to end their marital relationships.

She adds that the reasons are multiple and intertwined, some old and others exacerbated by the war, foremost among them difficult economic and living conditions, along with early marriage, which remains one of the factors affecting the instability of marital life.

She also points out that the conflict played a major role in exacerbating this phenomenon, not only economically but also through its psychological and social effects on individuals, leading to increased tension within families and higher rates of marital disputes, and consequently escalating divorce cases and annulment of marriage contracts before the judiciary.

Intertwined causes and widening crisis

Lawyer Moein Al‑Obaidi believes that the high divorce rates during the years of conflict in Yemen are due to a set of interrelated causes, foremost among them the repercussions of the conflict that directly affected the economic and social lives of families. The interruption of salaries for long periods, and the increase in poverty and destitution among many families, created a major pressure factor on marital life, especially in families with children or young daughters, contributing to increased tensions and disputes within the home.

She adds: "Displacement played an important role in this rise, as displacement camps witnessed high marriage rates under difficult and exceptional circumstances, but these marriages are often less stable and more prone to collapse later. The general deterioration of the economic situation, especially among low‑income or no‑income families, affected the stability of marital relationships and increased the likelihood of separation."

She explains that legal work within courts reveals two types of divorce and marriage annulment cases, noting that many of the cases being processed fall under "annulment of marriage contract," whose causes and procedures differ from divorce, although the end result is the same – ending the marital relationship – but each has its own legal path and different reasons.

A crisis spreading in silence

Between the stories of Sahar and Asma, and court figures, the features of a deeper social crisis emerge, reflecting how the conflict has reshaped the structure of the Yemeni family, making daily economic pressures one of the most important factors affecting marriage stability.

The ongoing conflict for years has pushed millions of Yemenis into unemployment, at a time when life demands have increased unprecedentedly due to economic collapse, rising prices, the deterioration of the local currency exchange rate against foreign currencies, in addition to the interruption of salaries for a wide segment of employees.

As the economic crisis continues, the Yemeni family remains facing increasing challenges, in a living reality that presses on the details of daily life and redraws the features of social relations in society.