divorce rate- 982 couples ended their marriage

Qatar's divorce rate is escalating at an alarming rate, official statistics indicate.

A total of 982 couples ended their marriage in the first 11 months of this year, and the figure by the end of the December is expected to cross the 1,000 mark, according to the figures released by the Qatar Statistics Authority (QSA). The figure means that around 80 couples get divorced every month, and an average of almost three every day. Last year, the courts recorded 939 divorces.

The figures show that of the 982 divorce cases this year, 655 involved Qatari women, compared with 327 non-Qatari women.

The months of April, May and June witnessed the highest numbers of splits, with 127 women divorced in May, 107 in June and 101 women in April, the daily The Peninsula reported.

Qatar had 496 divorce cases in 1999, but the figure has grown steadily over the past decade, reaching 997 in 2007 when 721 Qatari nationals and 276 non-Qataris getting divorced. The figure went slightly down in 2008 with 939 cases.

The total number of marriages celebrated this year in the first 11 months in Qatar was 2,917.In November, 266 couples got married, but 90 couples were divorced, including 57 Qatari women. In May, the month with the highest divorce figure, 323 couples got married.