Middle East / North Africa and the Millennium Development Goals ...

Middle East / North Africa and the Millennium Development Goals
Box 1 continued: Discrimination against women in the civil-status
codes of Arab countries
on a wife’s duty to obey her husband. Both men and women are entitled to sue
to enforce their mutual claims. If a court recognizes a husband’s claim that his
wife has been negligent in her duty to obey, the husband may refuse his financial
support for her.
However, the wife’s right to support has drawbacks for her as well, because it is
often interpreted in the way that there is no need for women to seek gainful employment.
Indeed, in some countries the fact that a wife seeks employment is
sometimes interpreted as a disobedience toward her husband – as long as the
husband has not given his explicit approval. This, however, is often difficult for
husbands for social reasons – a husband’s approval of his wife’s wish to work
may be interpreted as meaning that the husband is unable to provide adequate
support for his wife.
Except for employment or continuation of training, husbands are permitted to
forbid their wives from traveling unaccompanied abroad or even within the
country. While women can use marriage contracts to protect themselves against
such measures, the only option they have if their husbands break the agreement
is, again, recourse to a divorce court, which may then dissolve the marriage –
with all the social and economic consequences that this may entail for the wife.
Right to divorce
A husband has the right to terminate his marriage at any time, even without the
consent of his wife and without a need to cite his grounds. He just has to declare,
in the presence of his wife, that he repudiates her (ţalaq). In this case, the
husband remains unconditionally obliged to support his former wife.
More recent Islamic law has made it possible to apply for a no-contest divorce;
this takes on the form of a repudiation of the wife by the husband after the wife
has agreed to pay a certain amount of compensation to the husband (hul’). What
this means is that the wife is required to pay the husband a certain sum, which
should as a rule not exceed the value of the wife’s claim to support from her
husband; in other words, in this case the wife would, in the extreme case, fully
relinquish her claim to support.
Without her husband’s consent, the only option a married woman has is to petition
a court to terminate her marriage, i.e. she has the right to sue for divorce
(taţlīq or tafrīq). However, a divorce court is permitted to grant a divorce petition
only in certain cases, for instance if a husband (i) fails to meet his duty to
support his wife; (ii) has deceived or willfully deserted his wife; (iii) is serving
a prison sentence; (iv) has violated a marriage contract (assuming one has been
German Development Institute 65