Riyadh: More than 2,100 Saudi men married non-Saudi women last year, the Ministry of Justice has revealed.
The ministry said Yemenis topped the list of foreign women marrying Saudi men with 1,017 marriage contracts concluded at the Saudi Shariah courts in 2009. They are followed by Syrians (164), Pakistanis (145) and Palestinians (104).
According to official statistics, 1,944 Saudi women married foreign men last year representing 1.4 per cent of the total number of marriage contracts concluded in the courts. Foreign men who were married to Saudi women consisted of: 419 Yemenis, 407 Kuwaitis, 193 Qataris and 176 Syrians.
Meanwhile, a report issued in Sana'a by the department of documentation at the Yemeni justice ministry said Saudi men topped foreigners who got married to Yemeni women last year followed by Emiratis, Americans and Bahrainis.
Dr Naif Al Shammari, a social researcher, said Yemen has become a haven for Arab men seeking marriage. "They are also evading the high costs of marriage in Saudi Arabia taking advantage at the same time of the poor Yemeni families," he said.
Al Shammari said the rising numbers of Saudi men going to Yemen to get married has resulted in a sharp increase in the number unmarried Saudi women. He quoted a study that said there were 1.5 million unmarried women in Saudi Arabia.
Tribal incompatibility
The study said the reason for this was the refusal of fathers to marry their daughters on the basis of "tribal incompatibility".
It said some fathers would not allow their working daughters to marry because they want to have their salaries, a privilege which they may go in case their daughters get married.
"The judicial system in Saudi Arabia does not support Saudi women to marry on their own," it said.
On the other hand, the Saudi ministry of interior has turned down a request by the Shura (consultative) Council to relax restrictions on Saudi men wishing to get married overseas.
The ministry, however, exempted old men, the disabled and the socially rejected. It said these categories of men can easily be granted permission to marry foreign women in consideration of their circumstances.
Dr. Talal Bakri, chairman of the council's social committee, said the council had asked the ministry to relax restrictions so that Saudi men would not have to travel overseas and get marry sans permission.
