Divorce of U. S. Expats from wives in the Middle East.

[akiefer@elp.rr.com]

The situation of U. S. Contractors working in the Middleast who are converting to Islam for the sole purpose of getting a "Muslim Divorce", is ilegal and not recognized in the U. S. unless the divorce is done throught right legal channels in each Middleast Country. These men are moving assets so their expat wives cannot find these assets. I have two women, possibly more that have found themselves "being divorced by their husbands" after they have converted. All these women got was a written document in arabic stating they were divorced, by some cleric. What we have found is that the court here in Texas would not accept this so called divorce unless it was "officially translated and nortorized by the U. S Embasy in Egypt". These documents have to also have the wives signature and send to the World Court in Belgium to be stamped as a legal and binding divorce. In our case this occured in Egypt. In the mean time the husband, goes to their employer and has the wife shipped out of the country! Without even asking for some kind of legal documentation proving the divorce. Is there an advocay group for these women's rights for this situation, here in the U. S.?
These women are sent home with no source of income,
or knowledge of what the husband has done with their assets. These women once sent home will contact their husband's employer to get information for the purpose of getting either a divorce or some source of income. Often the employer will not divulge any information on their employees. These women have been married at least 15-25 years! There must be something that can be done to hold these men's employers accountable for allowing their
employees to get away with this by looking the other way!

[randalljd]

You can still file in the USA and you will have the ability to seize documents, seize assets and funds etc. At some point the US contractors will have to face the US system. We see that often, even at this forum.

Make sure you have a good international lawyer assisting.