New law in Egypt ensure women their inheritance rights
Nisaa FM: - The Egyptian parliament has passed a new Inheritance law on December 5 giving women their legitimate right to inheritance after the majority had been deprived of it.
Parliament approved the new law after the Cabinet, the National Council for Women (NCW) and civil associations submitted several draft laws in January 2016, December 2016 and September 2017 to amend the existing Inheritance law from 1943.
NCW Director Maya Morsi says, “We reached 1.2 million women in rural areas in our 'Tareq al-Abwab’ ['door-knocking'] campaign to familiarize women deprived of inheritance of their legitimate rights. Thus empowering them economically by giving them a source of income that would improve their living standards.”
NCW has seen been plenty of complaints and cases filed by women who have waited years without a ruling. Mona Soliman, a woman in her 50s, tells her story, “I was deprived of my father’s inheritance, which my brothers claimed as their own. They said they wanted to prevent my husband’s family from taking the land.”…..“Five years on, no ruling has been issued to give me back my right.”
Khadija Hussein, a woman in her 40s from Bani Suef, adds, “After my husband died, his brothers deprived me of the property we live in under the pretext that he did not have any male heirs. They manipulated the title deeds to show the court that the property was theirs.”
However, Amal Abdul Hadi, an activist at the New Woman Foundation, says, “The law alone cannot defy norms and beliefs because women then would fear asking for their rights and would settle.” She adds, “The norms have been placed above religious principles for decades.”
Egypt has announced 2017 “The Year of the Women”
Article 49 of the new law states that anyone who deliberately denies the heir, be it a man or a woman, their legal share of the inheritance or confiscates a document confirming this share shall be jailed for six months at least and be subject to a fine ranging between 20,000 Egyptian pounds ($1,122) at least and 100,000 pounds at most. In case of recidivism, the prison sentence shall be no less than one year.
Scholars have approved of the new law. Ahmed Karima, a Sharia teacher at Al-Azhar University, says, “The law complies with the principles of Sharia and confronts beliefs and norms that deprive women of their legitimate right to their parents’ or relatives’ inheritance — an act generally classified as apostasy. God’s orders mentioned expressly in Surat an-Nisa in the inheritance verses [that the Islamic law] should be obeyed.”
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi had dubbed 2017 “The Year of Women,” attacking cultural norms that deprive women of their inheritance during the World Youth Forum on November 8. He said, "We must change the norms and put an integrated program to redraw the real image of women and promote their status.”
Source: www.al-monitor.com