The occurrence of divorce while the wife is absent and unaware of it

Question:
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. A man residing in the Kingdom says: He divorced his wife in the presence of two men, while his wife was in another country. Is his divorce valid, or is it necessary to contact the woman and inform her of the divorce?

Answer:
The divorce takes effect if he divorces her. The divorce takes effect by his utterance of it, whether she knows or not? Informing her is so that she observes the waiting period and knows her status, but it is not obligatory. The waiting period begins from his utterance of the divorce. Yes, even if she did not know. If we suppose that she did not know until the waiting period had ended, we say the waiting period has ended; she owes no waiting period. That is it. The waiting period is not from the time of knowledge; the waiting period is from the divorce, from the occurrence of the divorce. Yes.