In its first-ever report on personal status laws, Human Rights Watch (HRW) paints a bleak picture of women suffering under Egypt's divorce system. Gihan Shahine reviews the report and asks its author, Farida Deif, some tough questions An issue of human rights In an exclusive interview, Farida Deif explains to Al-Ahram Weekly why it is necessary for Egypt to reform its family law system Why is Human Rights Watch (HRW) suddenly interested in family law, and why did it choose Egypt as the subject for the group's first- ever report on the matter? We chose family law as our subject because it is an area where abuses are not seen as a human rights issue. We wanted to shed light on the fact that such abuses are, in fact, human rights violations. We chose Egypt for a number of reasons. We wanted to choose a country where it seemed there might be the possibility for change, and a little bit less resistance to it. Egypt has witnessed a number of reforms. We wanted to examine the actual effect of those reforms, because they have been publicised as if there was now no more inequality or problems in the divorce system. We were suspicious about whether the family courts and the no-fault divorce had actually solved the problems, and we wanted to get to the bottom of the issue. The new family courts presented an excellent opportunity for us to tackle discrimination in divorce and other family laws. Besides, Egypt is a strategic and important player in the region, and its reforms are often emulated by other countries in the Middle East. It seemed like a good starting point for change, and a model for other countries to learn from. What is the purpose of the report? Is it related to talk of US social reform plans for the Middle East? The purpose of the report is to show that Egypt's unequal divorce system, and its consequences, violate Egypt's obligations under international human rights law. The report is certainly not part of the US's Greater Middle East project. The report has been publicised everywhere; anyone who wants to see it can view it and request a copy. We've been doing work on women's human rights issues in the Middle East for quite some time. So it's just part of our ongoing work. It's a global issue for us: we cover human right issues everywhere in the world. It's well known that many women seeking divorce languish in legal limbo for years. Does the study come up with any new findings? We know that Egypt's unequal divorce system is, in fact, a violation of international human rights law. But what we don't often know is the consequences of this inequality and what it means for women seeking a divorce. One of the report's main findings is that Egypt's unequal divorce system is condemning many women to violent marriages because there is no easy way out. The fact that men know their wives cannot divorce them creates a great power imbalance in the Egyptian family structure. The system actually empowers men through a host of laws that protect their interest, and creates a situation where domestic violence is tolerated. In the view of HRW, what is the solution to the problem? Certainly the solution to these problems is not no-fault divorce or family courts. There need to be substantive changes to the law, substantive reforms, and that requires creating a new divorce process that brings equal legal and judicial scrutiny to decisions made by all Egyptians to end their marriages. That is, either the government should make divorce extremely difficult for everyone -- as is the case in Coptic marriages -- or extremely easy for all spouses equally. In international human rights law there is no right to divorce, but there is a right to equality in divorce. Of course, we know things won't change overnight, but in the meantime, Egypt can take certain steps to facilitate divorce for women. Many women, for example, can now put isma (the right to divorce) into their own hands through the marriage contract -- which is a step forward. But, of course, everybody knows that the vast majority of women don't do this because the climate in which a marriage contract is signed is certainly not one in which women are apt to exercise their rights. So why, we wondered, is isma not a default provision in the marriage contract? Why do women have to add it themselves? This default condition in the marriage contract would save many women a lot of unnecessary suffering and take all these millions of cases out of Egypt's clogged legal system. Many critics have slammed the report as contradicting Islamic tenets. Is it true you are suggesting a family system that is opposed to Shariaa? [HRW] never takes a position for or against Shariaa. Our position is that the government should act in line with its international obligations, under human rights law, be that through religious or secular means. The system in place causes unnecessary harm and suffering to Egyptian women. I cannot believe that the Shariaa says that this is the way it should be. But how can an Islamic country like Egypt be in line with international obligations and, at the same time, adhere to Shariaa? It is a dilemma, of course. I think the Egyptian government needs to establish a system based on equality, a system that does not make Egyptian citizens suffer unnecessarily. If the government establishes a system in this fashion, one would hope that it would be both in line with international obligations and religious precepts and conditions. There are certainly many laws in Egypt which are not based on Shariaa. The civil code, business laws and a lot of penal laws are cases in point. As in many countries in the region, the Egyptian government has been very selective in terms of where it requires Shariaa to be the root of the law and where it doesn't. This is, of course, a problem, because most of the places where the government requires Shariaa to be the basis of the Egyptian law are those where women bear the main brunt of the effect. So are you suggesting that Egypt adopts a secular family system? No. I'm not suggesting either secular or religious law. What I'm saying is that there has to be a system based on equality. Yes, Shariaa is supposed to be based on equality, but the consequences are not. Don't you think the problem may be a procedural crisis which is impacting the whole judicial system, rather than an issue of discriminatory laws? I'm sure all Egyptian courts are very difficult. But the fact that only women have to resort to the courts to obtain divorce is discriminatory. In terms of the actual laws, I'm certainly not a religious scholar by any means, but the laws that may be identified with Shariaa are causing unnecessary suffering. This defect in the whole legal system, which is supposed to be a reflection of these laws, has made a lot of women suffer. Research needs to be done as to how to rectify the situation; there are certainly many religious scholars that have been thinking about how to reinterpret the Quran and Shariaa in ways that are perhaps more in line with today's reality and problems. The report says that Egypt's family laws perpetuate domestic violence. How do you explain then that the US, with its more equal divorce system, has an even higher rate of domestic violence? The laws are, certainly, not the only source of family violence. Family violence is a worldwide phenomenon, which affects millions of women. What we are trying to shed light on is that in Egypt, the government has created a system which perpetuates this violence. Surely, there is extreme violence against women in the United States and in other parts of the world. But the problem is that Egypt has no specific laws to protect women against domestic violence; all the laws that exist address violence in general, but not family violence per se. Providing women with equal access to marital assets and home upon divorce has encouraged many couples to shun marriage altogether in the US. This is not an option in a conservative society like Egypt's. Don't you think this suggestion will only further complicate marriage? The fact that women have no title to the marital home upon divorce is a huge problem. In so many other countries, marital assets are divided equally upon divorce. If this system was applied in Egypt, women would not face the risk of homelessness after divorce and would not have to remain in violent marriages because they don't have anywhere else to go. Certainly there are a lot of complications in getting married in Egypt. It may take years for people to gather the high expenses of marriage, get an apartment and so on. Still, the issue of women not having any title to the marital home causes so much suffering, that I think that if it deters a few men from getting married, then that's just the cost that will have to be paid. Are the report's recommendations binding in anyway? Why does the report provide recommendations for Egypt's donor countries? We certainly don't have any sort of binding strength. We only try very hard to encourage government officials to take the recommendations seriously. The recommendations that we address to Egypt's donor countries are never to cut aid. We never ask for cuts in aid, except in very rare cases, such as when a country has committed an excessive violation of human rights as, for instance, in case of genocides. We provide recommendations for Egypt's donor community to help channel funds to certain projects in the area of fighting violence against women, providing legal reforms, or doing research, and so on, which would all be done in cooperation with Egypt's NGO community.
