Seven years after women were granted the right to divorce, the thought still rubs people the wrong way: Sara Abou Bakr finds out why Sensationalist headlines like "A woman divorces her husband for failing to speak English" and "Woman divorces husband because he snores" are but two examples of how khul' (a woman's ability to obtain divorce on condition that she give up her financial rights) is portrayed in the media. As Azza Suleiman, director of the Centre for Egyptian Women's Legal Assistance (CELWA) puts it, "it's as if they're working as hard as they can to trivialise khul'. There are those sheikhs at Al-Azhar who tell women that it goes against religious law, advising them to seek traditional divorce." Compared to a one-year trial in case of the latter, a divorce will take no less than five years. The argument is simple: rigid scholars believe khul' destroys families and ruins male-female relations; activists like Suleiman think this is an attempt to deprive women of a right granted by religion, and now law, in order to sustain the patriarchal social structure. But according to Samar Wazeer, lawyer at the Arab Bureau for Litigation, an affiliate of the National Council for Women (NCW), "the downside is that a woman must give up all her financial rights -- a serious step. And sometimes we advise women to go for divorce, but they just want out as soon as possible." Another problem is all the steps required, which take a whole year: family court, advice from Al-Azhar, reconciliation meetings, official counsel... Activists suggest that a khul' case should make do with a reconciliation bureau, which would reduce the time required to two months. Wazeer adds that there are "unyielding judges who believe that it's their duty to make a divorce as difficult as humanly possible for a woman". In 2002 a statistical study entitled The Harvest: Two Years After Khul' demonstrated the legal amendments' immense appeal to women who had previously balked at the time-consuming process -- some 10,566 documented khul' cases pronounced a victory for women, according to Suleiman: it provided all these women with a way out of a difficult situation. This could involve anything from physical and verbal abuse, impotence and extramarital affairs to financial straits or an otherwise threatening environment. Nor has khul' been restricted to Muslim women, for whom it was intended: according to Suleiman, Christians resort to it as the only way out of marriage, though they must change sects. On being appointed Pope Shenouda III, the Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the Apostolic See of St Mark had annulled the use of Bill 38 that was issued by his predecessor Pope Kyrillos and allowed divorce for nine different reasons other than adultery, leaving Christian women no other option: "The church doesn't recognise a divorce issued by court; divorcees are ostracised, sometimes even by their families." Yet the practice is still seen as a problem for the wrong reasons. A man whose wife has resorted to khul' is referred to as makhlou' -- a derogatory term reflecting the tendency to frown on the procedure. "Uncultured people see him as someone who couldn't 'control' his wife," Suleiman explains, "cultured people see him as someone whose wife couldn't stand him to the point of giving up everything to be rid of him. A stigma has developed, in some cases making it difficult for such men to find a new wife." Happily this is not true across the board. One interviewee, Manal, believes "it's wrong to judge a man on the basis of one negative experience. Maybe the wife was to blame, after all." In 2006 study, The Social Effects of Khul', among the many in- depth interviews with women who practised khul' one stands out: a woman who married her dead husband's brother found him "a liability" and was forced to be the breadwinner; her khul' case lasted two years because he used false testimonies. "I feel light," she said, "now that I got rid of him." Yet her family still believes it would have been better to have a man in her life. "That's the problem with our society," says Suleiman. "People view a woman as the appendage to a man, not a person who can make choices." Social attitudes, not religion, are to blame for negative attitudes to women's rights: women who insist on having 'esma, the equal right to divorce while maintaining full rights, are routinely ridiculed in the movies, portrayed as domineering and eager to control weak, spineless husbands. "Whereas it is just a way for the woman to obtain divorce immediately; it doesn't, as is commonly believed, deprive the man of the right to divorce his wife." Suleiman is currently part of an NCW committee deliberating ways to improve the personal status law, taking children's well-being into consideration. Suggestions include splitting accumulated assets in half, prohibiting polygamy unless approved by a judge in specific cases; refusing Bill 38 to facilitate divorce among Copts, and "safeguarding the right of the man and his family to see his children in their mother's custody." Laws, Suleiman points out, exist to facilitate people's lives; Sharia, Islamic law, aims at making life easier. "The problem lies, rather, with legislation that is biased and a society that resists change. That's where the problem lies...
