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

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Markus Loewe
Box 1 continued: Discrimination against women in the civil-status
codes of Arab countries
concluded); or (v) is married to several wives to whom he does not provide
equal support. Furthermore, a married woman can at any given time petition a
court for dissolution of her marriage (fasih) if her husband does not consummate
the marriage (e.g. for the reason of impotence).
However, in nearly all countries of the MENA region the burden of proof for
both divorce and dissolution of a marriage is on the women concerned. The
consequence is a large number of protracted and grueling divorce suits, many of
which are, in the end, decided in favor of the husband for lack of evidence. This
has induced some countries of the region to adopt simplified divorce procedures.
In Egypt e.g. a court can grant a divorce if two court-supervised attempts
at reconciliation have failed and the wife declares her willingness to renounce
her claims to support and to restore her dowry (mahr) to her husband. Legislative
reforms in Morocco are headed in a similar direction. In Jordan a similar
initiative was rejected by the parliament in 2003.
Right to post-marital support
Wives who have been repudiated by their husbands are generally entitled to
three months of post-marital support, unless they were pregnant when they were
repudiated, in which case they are entitled to support until the child is born.
Furthermore, in cases of repudiation or divorce, the husband must pay support
for children whom he has fathered and who are still living with the mother.
Furthermore, some countries of the region have adopted legislation providing
for post-marital support payments beyond the traditional three months – but this
is for the most part referred to as ‘compensation for (arbitrary) repudiation,’ and
must only be paid if the wife has been repudiated for no fault of her own.
However, a divorced wife is entitled to retain all of the assets that she has
brought to the marriage or received from her husband. The principle of separation
of goods is firmly entrenched in Islamic law. Only Tunisian and Moroccan
law provide for the option of joint marital property.
Right to child custody
In matters of child custody Islamic law distinguishes between physical care for
a child and actual guardianship of a child. Up to a certain age, a child’s care is
generally in the hand of its mother. This also applies in cases of divorce, as long
as the mother does not remarry. In that case the father can petition a court to
have custody of a child removed from the mother and transferred to a close female
relation of the father (or, in a few countries, to the father himself).
German Development Institute