The majority of women continue to experience contraventions of their most fundamental human rights, despite the fact that some countries have seen significant advancements for women in attempting to secure tremendous respect for their rights. It is time for legislation reform to confront patriarchal gender relations, and the government, the court, local authorities, the media, civilized society, and academics must work together. The study of cases in different countries of how an exclusively patriarchal system can change if the female population fights back and presents possible solutions to disputes in court is an example of how modern law has changed.
In Kenya, the Kadhi judicial system upholds the limited succession, household, and inheritance rights of Muslims. The Kadhi courts in Kenya allow Swahili women to have more rights under Islamic law (Hirsch). Men fear that Muslim women, who are known as Kadhis, have the power to end marriages, a power often held by men in the home. There is no provision in Islamic law that prevents Muslim women from independently ending their marriages using the khul’ procedure. As Kadhis, Muslim women would have the same public authority as female magistrates to dissolve marriages by judicial order. They would simply adhere to the legal requirements for the judicial separation of such marriages.
Men think that the Kadhi court only rules in favor of women when cases are being heard. Most Muslim men are uninformed of the court’s historical evolution over the years, the statutes governing its operation, the selection criteria for Kadhis, and the status and location of Kadhis and Kadhi tribunals within Kenya’s legal system. Men think they are referring to a historicized Islamic state with a romanticized Islamic court that is far divorced from technology, industrialization, and the constraints of Kenya’s nation-state.
Although Morocco’s several legal victories in the area of women’s rights, its weak execution and legislative flaws damage its image as a liberal, tolerant, and forward-thinking nation. Urban women with advanced education who are members of feminist civilized society and non-governmental organizations have been at the vanguard of coordinating and advocating for these reforms (Rosen). According to personal status, women comprise the majority of Moroccan court customers in this case.
A complicated network of laws and processes confronts women who seek justice. Since the Kadhi court is a recognized institution, it has the authority to grant formal authorization, and its function is a formal resolution. Women frequently arbitrate conflicts and fight for women’s rights in Morocco; their function is a mediation a dispute. It includes the right to equality with men in areas like family law and customary constitution of successors, as well as in the right to education, adequate medical care, and the labor force. Occasionally, discrimination against women takes the form of selective preimplantation that could result in abortion.
The term “pre-colonial period” generally corresponds to the time of time before European colonialism was established in various parts of the world. When one country conquers another, exploits its inhabitants, and frequently imposes its own cultural and language norms upon its population, this is known as colonialism. Additionally, it disassembled the institutions of the African economy, education, commerce, market, transportation, and currency. Colonialism imposed a culturally homogeneous economy on the lands, which made colonies in Africa dependent. From the moment the system changed, women began to form a standoff in court against the old arrangements that were directed against them.
Work Cited
Hirsch, S. F. Kadhi’s courts as complex sites of resistance: the state, Islam, and gender in postcolonial Kenya. Routledge, 1994.
Rosen, Lawrence. Islam and the rule of justice: image and reality in Muslim law and culture. University of Chicago Press, 2018.