Most divorcees fail to pay alimony, show data

ISTANBUL

Most people in Turkey fail to pay alimony to their ex-spouses, data have shown, as the government is working on a new legislation on those entitlements.

According to the data, in 49 percent of court cases, the parties agree on consensual divorce, while contested divorce accounts for 48.5 percent of divorce suits.

Around 2.6 percent of marriages end in their first year while 33.4 of couples seek a divorce in the first one to five years of the marriage. The divorce rate for the couples that are married for six to 10 years is 20.6 percent and around 16 percent of marriages end after 11 to 15 years, data show.

Moreover, even if courts ruled for it in divorce cases, 66 percent of alimonies go unpaid.

After Bekir Bozdağ was appointed as the new justice minister, officials sped up work to put forward new regulations on alimony.

After examining the draft, Bozdağ is expected to hold a meeting with senior figures from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to discuss the issue. And the proposals will later be presented to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

The proposals in their current form introduce an upper limit for alimony depending on the duration of the marriage.

Accordingly, the proposals suggest that alimony should be paid up for an utmost of five years for the marriages that end in less than two years, while the upper limit should be 12 years for the marriages that lasted for five to 10 years. If the recipient of the alimony is experiencing financial difficulties, the payment may continue for another two to three years.

Judges will decide on how long the alimony should be paid, taking into account the parties’ financial situation and jobs.