46 Saudis marry African women

JEDDAH: The civil status courts have recorded 46 cases of Saudi men marrying African women over the last two years. Saudis marrying Sudanese women were the largest number with 16 contracts followed by 12 Eritreans.
The figure included 12 marriages to Nigerian women and five to Ethiopians. The number of Saudis marrying American women was seven while British women came last.
The Ministry of Justice is studying the imposition of penalties on Saudi violators who marry non-Saudi women without following the proper procedures. The penalties would be imposed on those who marry a foreign woman without documentation in any Saudi embassy or civil status courts if the marriage takes place in the Kingdom.
Rayan Mufti, legal adviser and lawyer, said the Ministry of Interior had made regulations to cover the marriage of a Saudi to a non-Saudi woman and vice versa.
There is no set punishment for a person who marries a foreign woman without documenting the marriage at a Saudi embassy or, if inside the Kingdom, through the civil status courts.
Such marriages result in children without documents to prove who they are and what their nationality is. Children should have personal documents to prove their identity and parents who fail to provide them will be punished.
The legal adviser added that the majority of undocumented foreign marriages inside the Kingdom are mostly entered into by military men and young people whose requests have been rejected because they were not of the legal age that enabled them to sign a marriage contract.
Scholarship students who marry outside the Kingdom often fail to document their marriages for fear of losing their scholarships. They may marry and leave their children without any identification documents.
He said that one penalty for a Saudi man marrying a non-Saudi included disciplinary action by the Board of Grievances and not being allowed to bring his spouse into the Kingdom.
Ibrahim Mubarak Al-Juwair, professor of social sciences, said compatibility between couples increases the chances of success of marriage. He pointed out that marrying a woman from another nationality needs skill and sacrifice to make a successful marriage.
Some men are tempted to marry foreign women, but after a while, differences surface and the marriage is terminated.