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Shiite woman call on council to revise custody
laws
BEIRUT: Nadine, 23, is allowed to
see her young son for 24 hours once a week. It’s an injustice, she said, one
she’s faced since a Shiite sheikh granted her and her ex-husband a divorce one
year ago.
“This is minus the 10 hours that he
sleeps, so I actually see my son 14 hours a week,” said Nadine, whose toddler
wandered among the protesters.
She joined a dozen other women and a
few men Saturday afternoon picketing in front of the Higher Shiite Council to
demand that it revise its custody laws to be fairer to women.
Family law in Lebanon falls
exclusively under the jurisdiction of religious courts, meaning each sect
dictates rules regarding marriage, divorce, inheritance and custody. For
Shiites, fathers automatically gain full custody of boys aged 2 years old.
Mothers can keep their daughters until they reach 7 years old.
Nadine was one of several women at
Saturday’s demonstration who are severely limited in the amount of time they
can spend with their children. The women said there were many more like them,
but that most divorced Shiite women were afraid to speak up.
Zeina Ibrahim, from Protecting
Lebanese Women, an NGO that calls for more equitable religious and public
policy, led the protest. She and her peers held up signs reading: “This law in
our religion cuts me inside,” “You can’t take my children in the name of
religion,” and “Shame on patriarchy and injustice.”
“The injustice inflicted on women
regarding the issue of the age of custody is no longer bearable,” Ibrahim said,
reading a prepared statement to a handful of reporters. “We came today to stage
a sit-in in front of the Higher Shiite Council to say aloud ‘Stop taking
women’s and children’s rights lightly, and enough with patriarchy under the
cover of religion.”
Ibrahim also accused the Shiite
religious establishment of corruption, bribery and favoritism.
In Nadine’s case, it was not the
father, but his family who tried to keep her at arm’s length.
After the divorce, her in-laws
limited time with her son to 14 hours every 10 days. She took the case back to
court, where a sheikh told her if he could give her son to her permanently, he
would, but he had to follow the law.
“He said, ‘If it were up to me, the
baby should stay with the mother,” Nadine said.
Lebanon’s Sunni sheikhs allow the
father to gain full custody of the children once they’re 12 years old, Ibrahim
told The Daily Star. PLW was calling for the same from their Shiite
counterparts.
Even the country’s main Shiite
schools of thought disagree on which age a father should gain custody of the
children. For example, the late Sayyed Mohammad Hasan Fadlallah was sympathetic
toward raising the age limit.
Disagreement among sheikhs leaves
some room for hope among divorcees, and Ibrahim said she received a call from
the office of Sheikh Abdel-Amir Qabalan, deputy head of the Higher Shiite
Council, saying the council was open to dialogue.
“It seems that something positive is
looming,” she said. “Qabalan is open for dialogue with us next week regarding
this issue.”
And if he isn’t, she said: “We will
take to the streets again ... the Lebanese woman will no longer keep silent
regarding her rights and the rights of her children.”
October
07, 2013 By Beckie Strum The Daily Star
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