No Shame. No Sorrow. Divorce Means It’s Party Time in Mauritania.

The henna artist bent over her client’s hand, glancing at the smartphone to get the precise details of the pattern chosen by her customer, a young woman living in an ancient desert city in the West African nation of Mauritania.

Under a sliver of brightening moon, the young woman, Iselekhe Jeilaniy, sat gingerly on a mat, careful that the wet henna on her skin would not smudge, just as she had on the eve of her wedding day.

But she was not getting married. She was getting divorced. The next…