Gender Justice and Legal Reform in Egypt

Mulki Al-Sharmani

Description

A rich multidimensional study of Muslim family law reform and gender justice in Egypt
In Egypt's modern history, reform of personal status laws has often formed an integral part of political, cultural, and religious contestations among different factions of society. From the beginning of the twenty-first century, two significant reforms were introduced in Egyptian personal status laws: women's right to petition for no-fault judicial divorce law (khul') and the new mediation-based family courts.
Legal Reform and Gender Justice examines the interplay between legal reform and gender norms and practices. It examines the processes of advocating for, and contesting the khul' and new family courts laws, shedding light on the agendas and strategies of the various actors involved. It also examines the ways in which women and men have made use of these legal reforms; how judges and other court personnel have interpreted and implemented them; and how the reforms may have impacted women and men's understandings, expectations, and strategies when navigating marriage and spousal roles.
Drawing on an extensive four-year field study, Al-Sharmani highlights the complexities and mixed impacts of legal reform, not only as a mechanism of claiming gender rights but also as a system of meanings that shape, destabilize, or transform gender norms and practices.
Preface
Acknowledgments
1. Reforming Family Laws, Seeking Gender Justice: Post 2000 Trajectory
2. The New Family Courts: Women and Mediation-Centered Legal Process
3. Khul': Court Room Practices, Litigants' Strategies, and Public Discourses
4. Love and Other Things: Marriage between Law, Religion, and Lived Realities
Conclusion: Unfolding Revolution, Unfolding Legal (Gender) Reform?

Sujets

• Musulmán
• Musulman
• Islam
• Law
• Comparative
• Droit et juridique

Informations

• Publié par: The American University in Cairo Press
• Date de parution: 20 octobre 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781617977831
• Langue: English

Extrait

GENDER JUSTICE AND LEGAL REFORM IN EGYPT
GENDER JUSTICE AND LEGAL REFORM IN EGYPT
Negotiating Muslim Family Law



Mulki Al-Sharmani




The American University in Cairo Press Cairo • New York
This electronic edition published in 2017 by The American University in Cairo Press 113 Sharia Kasr el Aini, Cairo, Egypt 420 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10018 www.aucpress.com

Copyright © 2017 by Mulki Al-Sharmani

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN 978 977 416 775 1 eIBSN 978 1 61797 783 1

Version 1
For Khaled (1984–2008)
Contents


List of Tables
Acknowledgments

Introduction
1. The New Family Courts: Actors, Agendas, and Goals
2. The New Courts and Gender Reform
3. Khul‘ : Between Law and Lived Realities of Marriage
4. Love and Other Things : Marriage and Family Law
5. And the Reform Story Continues?
Final Reflections: Post-2011 Egypt and Gender Justice

Appendixes
Notes
Bibliography
Tables


1. Cases Reviewed in a Settlement Office in Giza
2. Cases Reviewed in Six Settlement Offices in Alexandria
3. Monthly Statistics of Cases Reviewed in a Settlement Office in Alexandria
4. Profile of Interviewed Women Seeking Khul‘
5. Profile of Interviewed Women Seeking Fault-based Divorce
6. Khul‘ vs. Fault-based Divorce
7. Profiles of Interviewed Women
8. Profiles of Interviewed Men
Acknowledgments


T his book and the research on which it is based would not have been possible without the support, assistance, and contributions of many people. In the following few paragraphs, I wish to express my gratitude and debt to them.
I would like to thank Hania Sholkamy, associate professor of anthropology at the American University in Cairo’s Social Research Center (SRC). Hania proposed the initial idea of the research on Egyptian family courts and invited me to take it on as part of the Middle East research hub, which she was convening in the Pathways of Women’s Empowerment Research Consortium. I am forever grateful to Hania for that idea because it took me to fascinating and important research paths that I continue to pursue with great interest. I am grateful for Hania’s insightful feedback on various aspects of this research over its four-year span as well as her support, which allowed me to design, develop, and pursue this study autonomously and in my own voice. I also thank Hania for many discussions over the years about gender, family law, Egypt, and recently Islamic feminism, which have always pushed me to reflect and reflect some more.
I thank Andrea Cornwall, the coordinator of the Pathways of Women’s Empowerment Research Consortium for the support she provided me to undertake this research and to produce various publications about the findings.
My thanks to Hoda Rashad, research professor and director of the SRC, for her support, which greatly facilitated the fieldwork. I am also thankful to Dr. Rashad for her feedback on some of the analyses in this work, which were presented in a number of workshops and conferences at the American University in Cairo in 2008 and 2011. I thank the SRC’s administrative staff as well for their valuable assistance with the logistics of the fieldwork.
I thank my colleagues Sawsan Sharif and Fayrouz Gamal, the research assistants at the SRC, for undertaking the research with me. I also thank Sawsan for assisting me in the organization of the data and most of all for many helpful discussions about the research over the years. I am very glad that, in the course of this research, Sawsan completed her doctoral studies in education and went on to conduct her own research on gender and Islamic religious knowledge in Egypt. I follow her work with great interest.
My thanks also go to the Association for the Development and Enhancement of Women (ADEW) and its board director Dr. Iman Bibars for assisting with the field research. I am thankful to the lawyers Marwa Shahat and Azza Salah El Din for their great insights and for their valuable help with the fieldwork.
Special thanks to Ousama Radwan for facilitating the fieldwork in the studied settlement offices. I am thankful to numerous people who work at various family courts in Cairo, Giza, and Alexandria where we conducted our study and who have also greatly helped with the research. My thanks go to the judges who opened their courts to me, and to the settlement experts, court experts, and lawyers who shared their knowledge and work experiences. Most of all, I wish to thank all the women and men who graciously shared their legal experiences and their marriage aspirations and challenges. I am grateful to all.
Among the interviewees, I also wish to thank several former members of the National Council for Women, the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood, and the National Democratic Party, who were involved in the work on the new personal status laws that were passed in the period from 2000 to 2005. In particular, I would like to thank the Egyptian lawyer and activist Mona Zulficar; Judge Mahmoud Ghoneim; Isis Mahmoud at the National Council for Women; Dr. Fawzeya Abdel-Sattar, professor of criminal law at Cairo University; Raga Shehata at the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood; and the late Dr. Zeinab Radwan, professor of Islamic philosophy at Dar al-Ulum, Cairo University, Fayoum branch. I am also grateful to the religious scholars the late Gamal al-Banna and the late Abdel Moty Bayoumy for their insightful interviews.
I am greatly indebted as well to Dr. Heba Raouf Ezzat, professor of political science at Cairo University, for her time and insights in the interview as well as for graciously agreeing to chair and moderate one of the workshops we organized on this research in 2008.
Over the years, there has been a circle of colleagues and friends with whom I shared research interests in family law, the question of gender, and Islamic feminism, and from whom I have learned a great deal. Their insights have helped my thinking and benefited me in the course of this work. In particular, my thanks go to the anthropologist Ziba Mir-Hosseini, cofounder of Musawah and professorial research associate at the Centre of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law (CIMEL) at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Ziba has been a great mentor, research partner, and a wonderful interlocutor and friend. I also thank Professor Lynn Welchman at CIMEL for her feedback on earlier presentations of this research in 2007 and 2008. I thank Marwa Sharafeldin, the Egyptian researcher, activist, and member of the Knowledge Building Working Group at Musawah, and Azza Soliman, the lawyer, activist, board director of the Center for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance (CEWLA), and member of the international advisory board of Musawah. With Marwa and Azza, I have had many illuminating discussions about Egyptian family law and the question of gender justice.
I would also like to thank the global movement Musawah for providing me with a forum where I presented some of this research in two of Musawah’s workshops in Cairo (2007) and Amman (2011). My thanks, in particular, go to Zainah Anwar, director of Musawah, and my colleague Jana Rumminger, member of the Musawah Knowledge Building Working Group.
I am thankful to my department, the Faculty of Theology, and particularly to the Unit of the Study of Religions, at the University of Helsinki, which provided me with the resources and time to write this book, as part of the activities that I am undertaking in the Academy of Finland’s research project, Islamic Feminism: Tradition, Authority, and Hermeneutics.
Very special thanks also to Amiirah Salleh-Hoddin, master’s student at the University of Helsinki and my research assistant who has accompanied me over the past eight months in the journey of completing this work. I am indebted to Amiirah for endless hours of editing and research. Thank you, Amiirah. I would also like to thank Jana Turk for her assistance with the indexing for this book.
My final thanks go to my family and three special women for their unwavering love and support. They made this book and other important endeavors in my life possible.
Introduction


I n 1975, I went with my father to a movie theater in Cairo to see the Egyptian movie Uridu hallan (I Want a Solution). It was my first time, a ten-year-old, to go to a movie theater and to be exposed to the message of this classic movie. The film—which features the renowned Egyptian actress the late Faten Hamama—has often been described as a dramatic and poignant artistic depiction of the gender-based legal inequalities that Egyptian women suffer in marriage and divorce (Elsadda 2011; Sonneveld 2012). The story of the protagonist of the film, Duriya, and her painful and unsuccessful pursuit of a fault-based judicial divorce from a violent and cheating husband highlight several key issues in the relationship between gender justice and family law. The film, first and foremost, raises the issue of unequal divorce rights. While Duriya’s husband, if he so wished, could divorce her unilaterally and extrajudicially, Duriya’s only option for a way out of an abusive marriage (since her husband declined to divorce her) was a long and arduous legal process in which she faced insurmountable obstacles to substantiate spousal harm.
The movie also highlights the challenges that women encounte