Saudi women to receive divorce notice by text messages

From Sunday (today), the courts of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will be bound to notify all Saudi women about rulings on their divorce via text messages.

“The new measure ensures women get their [alimony] rights when they’re divorced,” Saudi lawyer Nisreen al-Ghamdi told Bloomberg.

“It also ensures that any powers of attorney issued before the divorce are not misused,” she added. “Some men register divorce deeds at the courts without even telling their wives.”

At present, it is a casual practise in the Kingdom that Saudi men file for divorce without bringing it into the knowledge of their wives.

Last September, Saudi King Salman decreed an end to the world’s only ban on women drivers, maintained for decades by Saudi Arabia’s deeply conservative Muslim establishment.

But it is his son, 32-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is the face of the wider social revolution.

Many young Saudis regard his ascent to power as proof that their generation is finally getting a share of control over a country whose patriarchal traditions have for decades made power the province of old men.