Moroccan-German marriage woes

Moroccan men and women are suffering alike Rabat – Judy Sabbagh Farid is a 42-year-old Moroccan man living in Germany. His story is just one of hundreds of divorce cases troubling Moroccans in the country today. Farid’s wife, whom he divorced four months ago, deprived him of seeing his children and moved to another city, apparently in an attempt to blackmail him. Farid is losing the will to live, he says, and he has already tried to kill himself several times. Working as a primary school teacher in Morocco until 2000, Farid immigrated to Germany in search of a more prosperous and stable life. “Modest” living conditions and a desire for a better life prompted him to leave his home country. Farid was offered a work contract in Germany, working at a huge commercial complex in the capital, Berlin. Soon he started thinking about marrying a German woman to give him residential status and even national citizenship. "I thought of getting a bit of stability by marrying a foreigner,” he says. “This is exactly what happened. I met a young German woman, who helped me to learn the language. We got married after just three months, and spent the most beautiful times of our lives together." But the honeymoon period did not last. "I did not know that my wife suffered from a host of psychological problems,” Farid says. “After the wedding, I realised she lacked a basic sense of sympathy because she was brought up by a tough father. Her father was a dictator. It made her hate all men and all she cared about was having children.” The problems continued, pushing Farid to divorce his wife after the birth of their first child – “a beautiful little girl,” he says. At this point, his wife disappeared. “I searched for her everywhere, but I couldn’t find her. Now I live in despair – I’ve lost my family and my job,” Farid says. Marrying a German woman can be problematic. That is what Murad thought when he arrived in the country as an immigrant, having heard horror stories from other young Moroccans who had married Europeans. Murad, who is 30, decided not to marry a German woman and to look for a young Moroccan or Arab woman instead. "Young Moroccans abroad prefer to marry them in order to maintain Arab customs and traditions,” Murad says. “Some ended up regretting their decision though because Arab women living abroad learn to be free and become like foreigners themselves. I was surprised when I ended up marrying a Syrian woman.” According to Murad, there was no difference between the Syrian and German women. He was suffering after three years of marriage. "I was cooking and feeding the children,” he says. “She never consulted me before taking any decision and when I confronted her about it, she went to the police to file a complaint, divorce me and kick me out of the house.” Murad could no longer tolerate the situation. One day he argued with his wife and hit her. Murad was imprisoned, deprived of seeing his son again. His wife left Germany and now Murad cannot find her anywhere. The consequences of mixed marriages are not limited to Moroccan men. Young women are also suffering. Souad, aged 28, says: "I was 18 years old when I married a German who had converted to Islam. But after the wedding I realised I had married a very cruel man." Souad's husband would go to work early in the morning and come home just to eat. Then he would go out again to meet his friends and when he returned home, he went to sleep straightaway. "I always wondered about my role in his life but I was patient, because of my son," Souad says. After arguments erupted between them, the couple decided they should get divorced. But then the husband ran off with their child and left for the United States. An official from the Moroccan Consulate in Berlin, Abdel Samie Mutawakil, confirms that the divorce rate within the Moroccan community has rocketed recently. “German women live in a free country and they can marry who they want,” Mutawakil says. “In spite of that divorce rates are very high in Germany.” Mutawakil attributed the high rates of divorce to “different cultural backgrounds,” especially among newly married couples. Differences in education, family life and experience “play a crucial role,” the official says, in creating problems within a couple.