Three years after Algeria's family code was revised, women are looking back with regret on their initial enthusiasm for the change. What appears to have been a well-intended effort to protect women and children's rights has inadvertently caused many of them to lose everything.
Her eyes are wild, her face is pale and her right hand stretches out to passers-by, opening and closing with an automatic, yet timid movement. For a year now, Hadfa Boutouba, 45, has lived in a cardboard box on the pavement in Algeria's working-class Bab El Oued district. Her three children Nassim, 10, Amina, 8, and Ines, 5, live with her. Her story is by no means unique. After fifteen years of marriage, the couple separates. The husband remarries, and the wife is forced to leave the home. Destination: the street.
Like so many Algerian women, Hadfa Boutouba was caught up in a storm of political slogans when the Family Code was reformed on February 27th 2005. Women were told that by repealing the 1984 law on marriages, they and their children would finally enjoy rights and protections in the case of divorce. Promises of what the new law would bring ranged from "equality of the sexes" to "strengthening the family unit".
At the time, women’s associations in Algeria hailed the new law as a victory. Even today, limited knowledge about the law leaves many women with a positive impression. Although she has not read the law, 36 year old tax inspector Hassiba Chékir,, tells Magharebia, "I’ve heard that divorced women are entitled to a home, and the husband cannot take a second wife without informing the first."
But the reality is not so simple. Many women today feel that the slogans from three years ago were illusory. Fatima Benbrahem, a lawyer well-known for her work to promote women’s rights, tells Magharebia that "instead of bringing solutions, the new family code has created dissolution". "They wanted to be innovative," she explains, adding that unfortunately, their actions brought about the opposite effect.
Lawyer Ahmed Khababa agrees. "Designed to strengthen family ties, the new code has turned the futures of thousands of families to tragedy in a very short time." He refers to Article 14 of the new law, which, in the case of repeated conflict, allows a wife to separate from her spouse without his agreement. In addition, Article 72 guarantees a mother a sizable sum of money to support herself and her children. "It is the father's responsibility to provide a decent home or, failing that, payment for rent," Khababa says.
"Many women who had stored up years of marital conflict rushed into demanding a divorce as soon as the new laws were created, thinking they would end up with a roof over their heads."
But the women were in for a rude awakening. "The husband presents a pay slip to the judge, indicating his low income. In the majority of cases, the judge awards a rent of 6,000 DA, knowing that the average price for a studio flat in a working-class district of Algiers approaches 10,000 DA. In the best case scenario, the woman chooses a dilapidated place to live. In the worst case, she will return to her parents' home, or find herself out on the streets," Khababa affirms.
Such a scenario was "predictable", Benbrahem says, and statistics released by the Ministry of Justice support her assessment. Indeed, there were 25,000 divorces in 2005. By 2007, the number had spiked to 36,750.
At the root of many of the problems is Article 8, which sets out conditions for the husband to contract up to four marriages at a time. The number of marriages, however, is not the worry. The problem lies in the way the marriages work.
Now, a husband who wants to remarry must present a judge with a marriage request bearing the signature of his previous wife. In other words, the woman must be informed of her husband’s intention to remarry.
"This condition has wrecked everything," Benbrahem says. "Very few men follow it through," he adds, noting that most turn to "extramarital relationships, and traditional or religious marriages which deprive the woman of all her rights in the eyes of the law."
Men have found a number of ways to circumvent the law. "I've pleaded cases where the husband has won by contracting a second illegal marriage (thanks to the new family code)," says the lawyer. "The cunning husband waits for the day when his new wife becomes pregnant. He then goes off to the judge and orders him to validate his marriage so he can give his name to the future offspring." Faced with this fait accompli, "the judge complies in 100% of cases" and the first wife finds herself out on the street.
"We absolutely have to work to get this family code repealed," insists Meriem Bellala, president of the SOS Association for Women in Distress. "The new code," she says, "enshrines the downfall of Algerian women and their children."
Since the enactment of the new law, she says, child custody has become "a means to justify a frequently unsavoury end." Because the husband no longer has to pay his wife's rent if she loses legal rights to the children, the mother wants custody in order to have a place to live and the father wants custody so he can stop paying an additional rent.
Bellala says that problems lie not only in the way the law is enforced, but also in a lack of understanding in some constituencies "where the texts defining the law have never been received." The Algerian authorities do not deny this situation.
Nouara Djaâfar, Algeria's minister for families and women, tells Magharebia that marriage failures are not the fault of the law "embodying the family code, but [rather] in the application of the law, which needs to be given time." According to a study by Djaâfar's ministry, more than 50% of women "do not know their rights" and are unaware of the content of the new family code.
Outside the capital, "they haven’t even heard about revisions to this law," says Samia Guermaz, a 42-year old English teacher. "It's common law that governs families."
Indeed, ignorance of civil law has led many women to enter into marriage with foreign Muslims without acquiring the proper legal protections of their rights. Mabdellah Temine, communications advisor for the Ministry of Religious Affairs, provided Magharebia with information indicating that in 2006 alone, some 3,000 women were tricked into marrying imams and sheikhs from the Middle East and the Gulf who were in Algeria on short-term postings.
"After noticing the husband’s absence, the victims go along to the consulate of their respective country," Temine says. "They discover there that the people they are inquiring after do not exist." The so-called "men of faith" have given false names in order to consummate "zawaj al mutaa" without being traced. Because the marriage was never official registered with the state, Temine says, "These women and children find that they have no rights."
By Achira Mammeri for Magharebia in Algiers
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