Discriminatory nationality and citizenship laws embody patriarchal values that undermine women’s basic human rights and expose them and their children to harm and further discrimination. Denying women the same rights as men to automatically confer citizenship to their children, will have disastrous consequences as women are less likely to leave abusive relationships and their children risk statelessness. Such discrimination contravenes a country’s obligation under international law and the need to interpret all constitutional provisions concerning citizenship, and its transference, without discrimination based on sex.
Many contemporary Muslim family laws continue to be based on classical fiqh rulings and outdated gender norms, and they reflect neither the justice that is central to the concept of law in Islam, nor our changing times and circumstances.
Several arguments commonly used to resist family law reform in Muslim contexts are often based on religious grounds. However, over the past decades, scholarship and activism in the Muslim world have developed to make the case for the possibility and necessity of reform.
‘Policy Brief 1: Why Muslim Family Law Reform? Why Now?’ outlines 10 fundamental facts to make the case for the reform of Muslim Family Laws, especially since resistance to reform is based on religious justifications. Many contemporary Muslim family laws continue to be based on classical fiqh rulings and outdated gender norms, and they reflect […]