Debated in Parliament on 13 Jan 2026.
Mr Abdul Muhaimin Abdul Malik asked the Acting Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs for each year from 2021 to 2025, (a) how many applications were received by the Syariah Court for divorces; (b) of these, how many applicants eventually divorced due to (i) infidelity (ii) financial problems and (iii) desertion, respectively.
Under the Administration of Muslim Law Act, applicants must first register for and attend the Marriage Counselling Programme (MCP) before they may proceed to apply for divorce at the Syariah Court.
Based on the latest available data from 2021 and 2024, the Syariah Court received an annual average of 2,986 MCP registrations. Of these, an average of 1,991 proceeded to file for divorce and, ultimately, an average of 1,478 cases resulted in divorce.
Data on the main reasons for the application for divorce is as published by the Department of Statistics, which is available at https://tablebuilder.singstat.gov.sg/table/TS/M830267.
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