The collapse of Sheema Qassem's marriage began with what she thought was teasing by her husband, a Sunni Muslim and former officer in Saddam Hussein's army.

“He would say, ‘You Shia were just waiting for Saddam to fall so you could take over', the 39-year-old woman recalled. “I thought it was just a joke, so I said, ‘One day for you, one day for us'.”

Two years later her husband is gone and she hardly sees her daughters, aged 7 and 5, who live with his parents in a violent Sunni enclave of the Triangle of Death, south of the capital.

The plight of Ms Qassem is typical of many wrecked marriages in a country where years of sectarian strife have caused divorce rates to rise. Before the US-led invasion in 2003, when bureaucratic hurdles and family pressure would often reconcile feuding partners, there were about 22,000 divorce cases a year. Last year there were more than 41,000. In parts of Baghdad the rate has almost quadrupled. Dalal al-Rubaie, a women's rights activist in Baghdad, said that sectarianism accounted for about half of marriage breakdowns in the capital and massive unemployment had put further pressure on couples. The concrete walls that now divide the capital into Sunni and Shia enclaves also run through people's hearts.

Ms Qassem, who was married for ten years before her husband told her he was leaving, said that her Sunni in-laws came to fear her because she was Shia.

“Whenever a Sunni was kidnapped or killed they'd act like it was my fault,” she said. Her husband, who lost his job when the army was disbanded, became moody. “When Saddam was arrested [in December 2003] he'd sit in his room and cry,” she said. The divides between Sunni and Shia areas did not help their situation - her husband found it difficult to seek work in Shia areas and they found it hard to visit their families, a traditional source of support in Iraqi society.

Two years ago, at the height of the sectarian slaughter, her husband said that he was leaving to seek work in Jordan and would send for the family when he had a job. She never saw him again and moved back to her parents' house.

She looked for a job, but in Iraq it is difficult for divorced women to move around without attracting unwanted attention from men and scorn from married women. Would-be employers offered her better jobs if she would sleep with them. She refused and remains unemployed.

When she became unable to look after her daughters she sent them to live with her in-laws. The children's grandparents do not want their mother to see them but a sister-in-law arranges secret meetings every few months. “They don't talk much, but they say they love me and miss me,” she said quietly. “Their grandparents don't let them phone me.”

Sectarianism ended the marriage of Ihlas Mohammed Ali even more directly. A resident of Doura, one of the deadly southern districts of Baghdad, the 40-year-old Shia woman's husband, a Sunni, was warned by extremists to divorce her or die. She left immediately for her parents' house, where she stayed for three months.

“He sent for me to come back but within five days he got another threat, saying, ‘Either your wife or your life',” she said. She left again but her parents lived in an area dominated by Shia militia and he could not follow. They were unable to move to any of the few relatively safer, mixed areas because they had no money.

Eventually he fled to his parents in Addumiyah, an overwhelmingly Sunni area. She could not be with him and after several months he stopped contacting her - she believes that his family turned him against her. “They always wanted him to marry another woman they preferred,” she said. “We had a beautiful life together for 15 years. Now I live with my parents and I feel like a guest with my own family.”

She still defends her husband against the accusation from her family that he used the enforced separation as an excuse to get out of a childless marriage, a phenomenon that Ms al-Rubaie said was all too common.

She said that men and women often sought divorce to look for richer partners: the difference being that it was easier for men. Now there is an increase in same-sect marriages across Baghdad.

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