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North Africa: Women secure more rights
01 September 2008
The New Nation
Hayet Laouni is a member of Tunisia's senate and an owner of her own maritime business. She credits her success to the liberal approach to women's rights that the government has shown since independence, and to its investment in education. "I am very grateful to my country," she says. "I was born and grew up in a part of the world where life is supposed to be hard for most people, but harder for women. In fact, I come from two parts of the world, Africa and the Arab Muslim world."
She is not alone. In 2007, Tunisia was ranked the highest in North Africa by a "gender gap" index compiled by the World Economic Forum, headquartered in Switzerland. Examining women's school enrolment, access to jobs, earnings and other indicators around the world, the index also ranked women's status in Tunisia as the second highest among all Arab countries. However, on a global scale Tunisia was still near the bottom, ranking 102 out of 128 countries surveyed. Algeria came in at 108, Egypt at 120 and Morocco at 122.
A number of sub-Saharan countries did notably better in terms of women's rights and social position, with Ghana ranked at 63 and Kenya at 83. While North African countries appear to be doing poorly in relation to the rest of Africa, they have in fact witnessed a decade of substantial reform, achieving some progress in improving the status of women.
Much of the reform has been in these countries' "family codes," sets of laws guiding the role and status of women in marriage, as well as their rights in divorce and custody matters. The family code has been an important focus for women's rights activists because its laws are "absolutely critical and fundamental in Muslim society," says Mounira Charrad, a Tunisian-born professor at the University of Texas who has researched women's issues in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco.
Those laws, Ms. Charrad told Africa Renewal, "address issues that are at the core of social life." Successfully reforming them, she says, can improve women's marriage rights, access to divorce and ability to secure custody of their children.
In recent years women in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia have secured more rights, greater access to education and a modest increase in their political representation.
Tunisia reformed its family code in 1957. However, it was only in 1993 in Tunisia (and a decade later in Algeria and Egypt) that a woman who married a foreigner could pass on her citizenship and nationality to her children. Prior to that, the children had to apply for residence permits just like any foreigner.
"When the present Tunisian government allowed a woman to pass on her citizenship to her children, this created a seismic cultural change in the society," Ms. Charrad told a panel convened in 2007 to mark the anniversary of the 1957 reforms. "Traditionally citizenship, as well as all other legal rights, was passed on through the father's side. By permitting citizenship to pass through the mother's line as well, the law challenged the entire patrilineal concept of the family."
Much of the credit for this progress lies with the emergence of dynamic and indigenous women's movements in North Africa during the 1980s and 1990s, explains Valentine M. Moghadam, head of the gender equality and development section of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Leila Rhiwi was the director of one such group in Morocco, Printemps de l'égalité (Spring of Equality). Women in North Africa today enjoy more rights and protections than 20 years ago, she told Africa Renewal. "Then it was very different. At that time women did not have any power over their own lives."
But progress has been halting and uneven. In 2005 Egypt granted women expanded divorce rights. But efforts to change the law to allow women to travel without the permission of a husband or father were dropped by the government for fear that they were too radical to pass.
Ms. Rhiwi, who is currently the women's rights coordinator for Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia (a region known as the Maghreb) for the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) observes that there have been different degrees of progress in Morocco compared with Algeria and in the Maghreb countries compared with Egypt. "What we have seen is a change in the law, not a change in society. However, changes in law allow for changes to occur in the society."
Between law and practice
Ms. Charrad agrees. "The law has made a difference in countries like Tunisia, where reforms happened in the 1950s. There we have had a length of time to see the changes. We know now that when the laws change, women are able to file for divorce more easily and custody is easier."
"What the law does not change is the social situation," she told Africa Renewal. "Socially, divorce remains very difficult. They [divorced women] suffer economically, and they find themselves treated as outcasts."
Eman el-Emam (centre) was one of about 30 women judges sworn onto the bench in April 2007 in Egypt. Conservative groups opposed the appointments, but the country's highest Muslim legal authority ruled that the move did not violate Islamic law.
Ms. Moghadam notes that the countries of North Africa continue to be marked by social practices that not only discriminate against women and are inconsistent with international treaties, but also contravene their own national laws. "Egypt's constitution grants equality to all citizens," she points out. But Egypt's family law contradicts that equality "by placing women under the guardianship," or legal control, of their fathers, husbands or other family males.
The 2005 Human Development Report on Arab States, published by the UN Development Programme (UNDP), observes that "the business of writing the law, applying the law and interpreting the law in the Arab world is governed above all by a male-oriented culture." Yet countries like Tunisia show that it is possible, in a Muslim country, to address "the injustices against women in personal status matters without infringing upon the principles of shari'a," as the Islamic legal code is known.
"We can no longer say that in the Muslim world it is hard to change women's rights," comments Ms. Charrad. "Women have really gained very significant rights in Tunisia and Morocco."
"We need to move away from the generalized statements about that part of the world and come up with a more nuanced way of looking at it," Ms. Charrad adds. "Once we see the diversity of the experiences of women in the Muslim world and see that some women have gained substantial rights, we can learn from those cases."
Rights limited by 'guardianship'
Caroline Sakina Brac de la Perrire, a social scientist who conducted research on Algeria for a 2004 study on women's rights in North Africa and the Middle East by Freedom House, a US-based group, argues that Islamic doctrine provides women with tools that they can use to counter conservative social practices. For example, under Islamic law a marriage contract may allow each spouse to state in writing his or her specific rights in the marriage. Used properly, she maintains, this provision could serve to guarantee some rights for women in marriage.
Unfortunately, Ms. Perrire adds, this option is rarely used and is usually restricted to stipulations that do not contravene shari'a. Moreover, many women do not contract their own marriages and therefore have no control over what is guaranteed in writing.
Until 2004, an Algerian woman needed a male guardian (father, brother or uncle) to formalize her marriage on her behalf. In Egypt, another researcher found, while educated girls have a substantial say in choosing their husbands, in the rural areas marriages are often contracted by the fathers. Libyan girls can still be married off by the father or guardian without their input.
Such "male guardianship," the Freedom House study notes, also has implications for women's economic welfare. For example, the dowry, money paid by the groom, conforms to Islamic stipulations that the man provide for the bride and is often the only income a woman can keep in case of divorce. But in Morocco and Egypt, poor women often receive little or no dowry. A national survey found that 60.7 per cent of rural women in Morocco reported that "their husbands or guardians appropriated" such income.
Moreover, women can often be divorced by their husbands immediately and without explanation, a practice known as "repudiation." Only in 2004 did Algeria abolish repudiation as a form of divorce. Morocco, which previously made it easier for men to divorce their wives, granted men and women equal rights to file for divorce in 2004.
In Egypt, a law passed in 2005 granted women the right to a no-contest divorce. However, a woman who exercises that right may lose her dowry, alimony and other gifts given by the man's family, a serious deterrent for women with few economic options.
Some governments, in response to the advocacy efforts of women's organizations, have made institutional changes to ensure better access to justice. Egypt introduced a new system of administering child support and alimony and has brought divorce and inheritance issues under one judicial authority. Victims of discrimination can also send confidential complaints to a new gender ombudsman's office, which has received 7,000 complaints since 2005.
Rebecca Chiao of the Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights told Africa Renewal that since the changes were implemented in Egypt, her group has held an average of 6,000 consultations annually with women seeking legal assistance in understanding and using the new regulations.
Reform of inheritance practices has been minimal. According to shari'a law, women are entitled to inherit a share that is half that of their brothers. But in Egypt and Libya, reports the Freedom House study, women's access to inheritance, housing and property is often determined by their educational level, family support systems, economic status and access to legal information and mechanisms. As a result some women, especially in rural areas, do not even get their half share. Moreover, non-Muslim women married to Muslims cannot inherit matrimonial property.
"Inheritance laws are very explicit in the Koran," observes Ms. Charrad. "For most people, to change them is to question a fundamental piece of the religion. In contrast, marital and divorce laws in the Koran are less explicit, therefore much more fluid and open to varying interpretations."
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