Parental visitation rights will be amended to allow non-custodian parents a more positive experience with their children. Reem Leila investigates Non-custodian parents have recently been stirring up public opinion against the personal status law regulating visitation rights, because they feel it is unfair to them and damage their relationship with their children. Currently, Law 62/1976 states that children of divorced parents live with only one of them, usually the mother as long as they are still under the age of 15. If the parents come to an amicable agreement regarding visitation rights, there is no problem; but if there is disagreement, they go to court. In most cases, it's usually the fathers who find themselves in front of a judge asking to see the children. According to the law, parental visits which are supervised by an appointee of the court occur once a week, for three hours, in a public place -- such as the offices of the National Democratic Party (NDP), sporting clubs, libraries or public parks -- in order to guarantee the child's safety. Fathers, who are mostly the non-custodian parent, argue that these visits are usually conducted in a hostile atmosphere, where they cannot play, hold, hug or even talk freely with the child. Most non-custodian parents demand that the law be modified to increase the duration of visitations and allow them to take the child to their home for one or two days. Custodian parents, however, disagree. They counter that fathers -- who mostly do not financially support their children -- usually take advantage of visitation hours to fight with the mothers and portray them as monsters in front of their children. Some go as far as kidnapping the children. Based on the request of the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM), Al-Azhar will revise the requested amendments to the law. Accordingly, Al-Azhar has sent the draft legislation to the Islamic Research Council (IRC) to decide whether these amendments are compliant with Islamic regulations or not. Abdel-Moeti Bayoumi, member of the IRC, said the amendments preliminarily appear to be compliant, "but the draft is still under review and we cannot give our final decision now." In the suggested amendments which will be discussed in the People's Assembly in the next session, visitations will increase to 10 hours per week, on condition that the father proves his financial support of the children. Fawziya Abdel-Sattar, law professor at Cairo University, pointed out that most of the cases before the courts show that the fathers do not pay child support or even show up during visitation hours. "Children will go and wait for long hours to see their fathers, but they never come," Abdel-Sattar stated. Additionally, there are many official reports by custodian parents against the non-custodian party for kidnapping the child during visitations. "Children come out of these experiences feeling depressed and suffering psychological trauma," she asserted. The suggested amendments, noted Abdel-Sattar, will also provide appropriate guarantees to the custodian parent that the children will return after these visits. "Parents who abduct the child will be subject to a minimum of three months and a maximum of one year in prison," revealed Abdel-Sattar. This is up from one month in jail and a fine that does not exceed LE1,000. She further suggested that parents who commit this crime should be deprived of seeing their children for six months. Wael Mohamed, a non-custodian father, claims that the present law also deprives children of visits by grandparents or the extended family of the non-custodian parent, except if neither parent is in the country. In fact, the extended family of the non-custodian parent has no rights at all, which damages extended family ties. "Why can't these visitations take place in a healthy and normal atmosphere, full of love?" questioned Mohamed. "The non-custodian parent should be able to take the children home so they can come to know their brothers and sisters better, as well as the parent's family." Abdel-Sattar explained that grandparents are allowed to see their grandchildren if the non-custodian parent is either dead or travelling abroad. In this case, the rules regulating visitation rights of the non-custodian parent also apply grandparents. According to Heba Hamza, a 40-year-old custodian mother, most fathers do not financially support their children, do not ask about them, do not call them, do not visit them, no member of the father's family asks about the children, or call on special occasions. But nonetheless, they go to court and ask for visitation rights to spite the mothers. "I am trying to convince my ex-husband to come and visit his son," said Hamza, "but he does not even bother himself to answer my phone calls." She believes that fathers who entirely neglect their children should be deprived of any right to visitation. Al-Azhar will also reconsider the order by which the father gains custody, after NCCM suggested that he comes immediately after the mother and the grandmother. Currently, the father comes fourth in line after mother, grandmother and the maternal aunt. But Bayoumi opposes this proposal because it goes against what is written in the Quran. "The order by which the father gains custody is impossible to change," he asserted. "Otherwise, we will be violating God's orders."
