WOMEN RIGHTS IN LIBANESE EPUBLIC

16 CMI REPORT NUMBER 3, SEPTEMBER 2017
another option. She will say, “I give up my end of marriage compensation [mou’akhar],
just divorce me.” 24
Not only does the determination of fault have a significant impact on the financial rights of
a wife during severance cases (since end of marriage compensation depends on the degree
of each spouse’s “fault”), but the process itself “lacks transparency and basic due process
guarantees, including a right to appeal the arbiter’s report” (HRW 2015, 45). When issuing
a judgment based on the arbiters’ culpability findings, a judge is under no obligation to
offer a legal justification for the decision. Moreover, the findings and recommendations
of the arbiters are not binding: the judge “can alter blame assigned to either party at his
discretion and without explanation” (ibid., 46). HRW’s review of court rulings related to
severance cases concludes that “women are overwhelmingly found to be more culpable
than men,” which also means they are unable to get the entire compensation sum to which
they are entitled by law (ibid.).
Furthermore, while in all Muslim confessions courts require the husband to pay
maintenance, the amount itself is often so low that it “does not reflect the wife’s actual
need or the husband’s financial capability.” 25 The situation is rendered more difficult for
women undergoing divorce proceedings when the husband knows the judge, and the
process is influenced in his favor:
The judge can stall, often by delaying the notification of the husband, but in the end a
judgment to pay maintenance has to be issued. It is true that the amount is often very low,
and cannot cover the expenses of the mother and her children. It is also very hard for the
religious court to determine the income of the husband especially when he is a merchant.
The amount women and their children receive in Sunni courts varies between LBP 300
and 350 thousand [ca. US$ 200 to 230]. This is not a realistic amount. But no matter how
much we talk to them [i.e., religious judges], they just don’t grant more. 26
In sum, although Muslim women have access to divorce in some cases, the limited grounds
for seeking a divorce, the challenge of obtaining a positive ruling in severance cases, and the
length of proceedings, coupled with the arbitrariness, lack of transparency, and long delays
in determining culpability, have in practice forced many women to forfeit all their financial
rights in order to opt out of a bad or abusive marriage. Women are often compelled to make
such hard choices since, throughout the duration of the (lengthy) court proceedings, a
wife is not allowed to leave her marital home. Rather, she is encouraged by the judge to be
patient and reconcile, even if beaten and raped by her husband, because the husband has
the right to demand sex of his wife while still legally married to her.
It should be noted that fault-based regimes like the severance system have been
denounced by CEDAW because they often base financial rights on a lack of fault, a condition
that can be easily abused by the husbands to free themselves from any financial obligation
towards their wives. CEDAW’s general recommendation to article 16, titled “Grounds for
divorce and financial consequences,” notes the following (CEDAW 2013, para. 39):
Some legal systems make a direct link between grounds for divorce and financial
consequences of divorce. Fault-based divorce regimes may condition financial rights on
lack of fault. They may be abused by husbands to eliminate any financial obligation towards
their wives. In many legal systems, no financial support is awarded to wives against whom a
fault-based divorce has been pronounced. Fault-based divorce regimes may include different
standards of fault for wives and husbands, such as requiring proof of greater infidelity by
24 Personal interview with Osman, supra.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid.