CAIRO - Many fathers, prohibited from seeing their children, recently demonstrated outside the Ministry of Justice. It is the Law on Visitation Rights that prevents them from communicating socially with their children. Seven million children and 5 million fathers are harmed by this law that was issued by ex-President Mubarak, supported by his wife. Protesters want all the laws supervised by Mrs Mubarak to be revised, arguing that they are full of constitutional defects. The former ministers of justice and endowments and the Speaker of the People's Assembly (the Lower House of Parliament) have all contributed to these laws. In light of such protests, it is expected that incumbent Minister of Justice Abdel-Aziz el-Guindi will issue a decision, allowing fathers to host their children in the custody of their divorced wives for 48 hours a week, instead of seeing them for just three hours a week, according to the Law on Visitation Rights. Mohamed Wahdan, a professor at Al-Azhar University, stresses the necessity of issuing of civil status laws under the umbrella of Al-Azhar, which refutes most of these laws at present, because they are incompatible with Islamic Law. However, Ibrahim Nadda, the head of the Mother Care Association, a non-governmental organisation, says that the current visitation rights for fathers of children under their mothers' custody is appropriate for Egyptian society and is also in the child‘s interest. ”An amendment allowing a father to see his child for two days per week, looks like it's going to be passed, but it's not suitable for our society and contradicts Islamic Law, because the child will think that he/she is under two different ‘custody situations',” he explains. Professor Amna Nusseir of Al-Azhar University told Al-Ahrar opposition newspaper that the children of divorced people shouldn't have to suffer from the problems of their parents, who must take this into consideration. “The children have the right to a stable life, whether living with their mothers or fathers,” she added. Fawzia Abdel-Sattar, a professor of law at Cairo University, notes that, in recent years, Egyptian women have gained some important rights, one of them being that they can, if divorced, care for their children until they reach the age of 15. Prof. Fawzia, who regrets that the divorce rate has increased over the past decade, wants the civil status laws amended, in order to better protect family life and ensure the rights of all parties. Professor Mahmoud Abdel-Ghani of Al-Azhar University is in favour of fathers seeing their children for 48 hours every week, so that they and the rest of their family can see and communicate with the children, in order to establish a strong bond between the children and their father's relatives. He does, however, agree that it is only right for mothers to care for their children until the age of 15.
