Passage of the Amendment to the Family Courts Law: the Coalition for Equality in Personal Status

For five years, as the leading member of the Coalition for Equality in Personal Status Law, IWN worked for passage of a law enabling Muslim women to settle issues of maintenance and custody in civil courts and Christian women to settle issues of maintenance in the civil courts. IWN helped draft, promote and advocate for passage of the law.

In November 2001, the Knesset enacted this important legislation, which was sponsored by Knesset Member Nawaf Mazalha. Advocate Taghreed Jashan, of the IWN legal staff, represented IWN in the Coalition and her efforts enabled the passage of the law.

Explanation of the Amendment to the Family Courts Law.

The new law permits Muslim women to handle matters of custody and maintenance in a civil family court as an alternative to the Islamic court system. It also allows Christian women to turn to the civil family court in cases of maintenance during their marriage, as an alternative to the Christian court system. Typically, the Israeli civil courts provide more equal treatment for women than the religious courts.

Until this legislation was enacted, Arab women could only turn to their respective religious courts in matters of maintenance and custody. However, Jewish women had the alternative of turning either to religious or civil courts in these personal status matters. By passing this legislation, the Knesset rectified an historic wrong that infringed on the equal rights of Christian and Arab women in the State of Israel.

In the religious courts, Arab women suffer considerable discrimination. For example, Muslim law grants custody of children to the father when a boy is 7 and a girl 9, in contrast to civil courts, which determine custody according to the welfare of the children. Moreover, the level of maintenance allocated by religious courts is considerably lower than that allocated by civil courts. This important new law will enable thousands of Arab women to gain more fair settlements in cases of maintenance, custody and paternity.

IWN's Role in the Coalition for Equality in Personal Status

As a leader in the Coalition, IWN undertook major efforts towards passage of this law. Considerable opposition arose from certain Muslim sectors, including the Islamic Movement, the Islamic religious courts, and the Mufti of the Palestinian Authority. Opposition also arose among more secular nationalist sectors. IWN consistently worked with the Coalition to persuade legislators of the need for this law to be passed.

IWN still sees much work to be done. Currently there is not one male or female Arab judge in the family courts. Current judges (all of whom are Jewish) must now be trained to deal with the new issues that will arise as a result of this new law. Additionally, IWN and the Coalition are planning an education campaign to educate Muslim and Christian women about this new legal option. Finally, IWN and the Coalition must still watch and monitor women's rights in the Muslim Sharia courts on behalf of those women who continue to turn to the religious courts.

More on the Coalition for Equality in Personal Status

IWN has been one of the major leaders of the Coalition for Equality in Personal Status Issues. This Coalition was founded in 1995 to address the discrimination faced by Arab women in personal status issues.

The coalition's members include 10 human rights and women’s organizations as well as independent individuals who are lawyers, social workers and other concerned people. The organizations include IWN, Women Against Violence, the Arab Association for Human Rights, Women to Women (Haifa), the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and others.

The coalition focuses on three main strategies:

• Legislative: through passing an amended law in the Knesset that gave Arab women the right to choose in personal status issues whether to go to civil or religious courts.
• Public Awareness: educating professionals as well as the wider public about Arab women's personal status rights, and the laws and social practices that harm their status.
• Implementation: lobbying for the implementation of existing laws, which protect Arab women’s personal status rights, and for improvement of the treatment of Arab women in religious courts.