Expressiveness
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AFP
The issue of divorce in absentia in Egypt is considered a social catastrophe that threatens the stability of many families and undermines their safety.
Some husbands exploit loopholes in the Personal Status Law and the Egyptian list of authorized persons to divorce their wives without informing them. To deprive them of their legal financial rights, whether in divorce or inheritance.
The year 2017 recorded two hundred thousand divorces, while the year 2021 recorded more than 250,000 divorces, some of whom did not know that they were divorced.
Fake addresses
According to the cases monitored by an investigation by “Erm News” regarding divorce in absentia in Egypt, husbands who evade informing the wife inform the authorized persons of fictitious addresses and not the real addresses of their wives, or in collusion with some of the authorized persons, who refrain from informing the wife in light of the weak penalties.
The investigation revealed that a number of authorized officials were unable to inform more than 100 women of their divorce during the past ten years.
The Egyptian Minister of Justice said in a statement in 2021 that Egypt has about 4,638 legally authorized persons, and this means that there are 463,000 divorced women during the last ten years who are not aware of this, or approximately 46,000 women every year.
In this regard, a woman named Islah Sabri, one of the victims of divorce in absentia, said that her husband divorced her without her knowing anything about it for more than 28 years.
Sabry was not surprised when she learned after her husband’s death in 2020 that he had divorced her. At first, she thought this had happened three years before his death.
But the shock came when she received the divorce document, with the date written on it in October of 1992, that is, 28 years before the husband’s death, and only two months before the birth of her eldest daughter. He even continued to live with her throughout this period, and he fathered another daughter with her seven years after the divorce without Teach her.
Disaster after the end of the kit
In this context, Abdul Hamid Al-Atrash, former head of the Fatwa Committee at Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, said: “The legal ruling is fair to the wife. If the husband has intercourse with her during the waiting period, this is considered a legal return to his infallibility, but he is not documented before the law, which deprives her of her rights and the rights of her children to inheritance.” If cohabitation occurs after the end of the waiting period, this is considered adultery, but the wife will not bear the responsibility due to her lack of knowledge, and the husband will bear this sin in full.”
For this reason, Islah and her daughter lost their rights to inheritance and the husband’s pension, forcing her to file a lawsuit demanding the invalidation of the divorce in absentia.
Commenting on this phenomenon, Ms. Islah’s lawyer, Hadeer Adel, said that the court ruled that the inheritance notification issued after the father’s death was forged, and is awaiting a ruling in the case of inadmissibility of divorce in absentia so that the wife and her daughter can regain their rights to inheritance.
The Egyptian Personal Status Law, which dates back to 1920, allows a husband to divorce his wife in absentia, without her being present.
The list of public officials issued by the Minister of Justice in 1955 and amended by Resolution No. 4054 of 2015 stipulates the necessity of the public official informing the wife of the divorce as soon as it occurs, and he specified 3 methods for notification, according to the public official Ashraf Moussa, who worked as public official for 17 years.
While renewing her ID card, Abeer Salem (40 years old) discovered that her husband had divorced her while she was in her father’s house after a dispute between them, and that her return to his capital was not recorded after they reconciled.
Abeer confronted her husband with what she knew, and he admitted that he did not document the return at the request of his lawyer due to the fear of coming back to demand divorce again, and also demanding her legitimate legal rights after him, including deferral, alimony, and so on.
Wael Amer, a lawyer specializing in personal status issues, says that manipulation through an agreement with the notary or the bailiff, or by providing a fictitious address to the wife, deprives the wife of her rights for as long as she does not know about it, as the husband divorces his wife and returns to continue with her in their normal life as if nothing had happened. Until the wife discovers the truth by chance or by the death of the husband.
Amer adds that wives who know the truth before the husband’s death are the luckiest, as the court is mostly sympathetic to wives divorced in absentia because the judge feels that the husband betrayed her and divorced her without her desire. Therefore, it is easier for her to obtain her rights from alimony, deferral, etc.
He explains that a woman divorced in absentia has the right to temporary alimony, which is estimated at 24 months of monthly alimony, and the waiting period, which is three months’ alimony, in addition to the full back pay. The wife can also file a lawsuit to prove deception and harm and demand compensation.
Farcical punishments
The Personal Status Law stipulates in Article 23 bis the husband’s punishment if he gives a fictitious place of residence to his divorced woman: “The divorced person shall be punished with imprisonment for a period not exceeding six months and a fine not exceeding two hundred pounds if he gives the notary incorrect information about his marital status or the place of residence of his wife or wives or “His divorced woman.”
Lawyer and human rights researcher Hala Douma believes that these penalties are farcical, as the prison period does not exceed only 6 months, and a fine of only 200 pounds, or $6.5, and in most cases the husband’s main desire is to continue the marriage relationship in order to evade their legal rights, especially since Some of them discover this deception after the death of their husband.
Family reputation
Souad Khairallah – a pseudonym – never imagined that she would find herself forced to stand in front of her uncles to demand her rights from her cousin, who divorced her without her knowledge.
Souad said: “I got married 6 years ago to my cousin, to whom I got engaged when I was a child, as is the custom in families in Upper Egypt. I initially thought that I would move to live with him in Cairo where he works, but I was surprised that the marital apartment was in my uncle’s house, and that he would come every week.” He will stay with me for two nights and then travel.”
When Souad discovered her divorce, she went to her second uncle, as he was the oldest member of the family, and she was in a state of shock. In turn, the uncle gathered the men of the family together, and they agreed that her cousin would authenticate his marriage to her, after obtaining a telephone fatwa that the marriage was valid and there was no suspicion of adultery in it, except She insisted on a divorce and filed a lawsuit against him, and in response to her insistence, the family agreed that he would compensate her with the value of an acre of land, divorce her verbally, and obtain all of her financial rights, on the condition that no lawsuit be filed so as not to harm the family’s reputation.
Deception
Lawyer Hala Douma says that personal status laws oppress women, as they allow divorce at the sole will of the husband, noting that there are Arab countries that do not allow divorce except by the will of both spouses before the court to guarantee women’s financial rights.
Until now, hundreds of thousands of women in Egypt are still being deceived by their husbands and deprived of their rights, and the number is likely to increase.
2023-10-28 18:10:13
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