Divorce can prove traumatic

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Santi, not her real name, never imagined the difficulties she would encounter after she filed for divorce to end her 10-year marriage.

Since filing for divorce with the West Jakarta Religious Court in the middle of 1999, she has had to live on the run to avoid terrorizing phone calls and threats made by anonymous men.

She suspects that her estranged husband is behind all of the terror.

Her husband, a businessman, was apparently upset with her decision to end the marriage.

According to Santi, her husband changed a lot since they first got married, as he became arrogant and no longer respected her as his wife.

After discussing it with her parents, Santi told her husband that she wanted to split with him. Her husband did not believe her as she had always followed his words.

However, the next morning, Santi moved to her parents' house, taking their eight-year-old daughter along.

Santi then hired a lawyer and filed for divorce. Since then, she has been receiving phone calls around the clock at her parents' home. Some unidentified men have threatened and abused her with dirty words.

"I decided to leave my child under my parents' guidance and moved because I didn't want to disturb them with my personal problems. I had to move from one place to another," she told The Jakarta Post.

The divorce process dragged on slowly as her husband and his lawyer failed to attend the hearing several times. The panel of judges even suggested to her that she go back to her husband as some witnesses testified there was nothing wrong with Santi's marriage.

Santi, however, insisted on her stance.

Seven months passed and there was no indication that the process would end. And now, her father, a respected law professor, intervened on her behalf. He personally met the presiding judge who was handling the case and asked him to approve her request.

Three months later, the court approved her divorce suit and ruled that she was eligible to take care of their daughter.