As feminist groups mark Tuesday, March 8, the International Women's Day, a legal amendment granting citizenship to children of Algerian women married to foreigners, Muslims or non-Muslims, has sparked a furor with rights activists calling for treating men and women on an equal footing.
“Frankly speaking, I’m totally against this proposed amendment,” Mussalam Bumosbah, a Member of Parliament for the Movement for National Reform (Mouvement Islah), told IslamOnline.net Tuesday.
“Algerian girls often continue their postgraduate studies in Western countries and they might fall in love with non-Muslims, and Islam prohibits a Muslim woman from marrying a non-Muslim. So, religion is a must in the proposed amendment.”
He regretted that the amendments to the citizenship and family code laws have been ratified by the cabinet at directives from President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.
“Unfortunately, the issue will not be debated in parliament and it seems as if legislation is passed by presidential orders, which undermines the country’s judiciary,” Bumosbah.
The citizenship amendment has been put forward against a backdrop of an array of international agreements inked by Algeria to protect the rights of women and children.
The parliament will decide the fate of this motion this month through a direct yes-no voting, without discussions.
Un-Islamic
Sheikh Abdel-Rahman Shaiban, head of the Muslim Scholars Association, said Islam does not consider the citizenship of a male suitor but his religion.
“Muslim women can’t get married to non-Muslims, because men are the head of the household,” Shaiban told IOL.
“The proposed amendment should therefore be in line with Shari`ah (Islamic law) and the Constitution’s article two, which stipulates that Islam is the religion of the state.”
According to the Noble Qur'an, the husband is the head of a household, and as such his wife should obey him.
Almighty God does not want to put Muslim women in a position that a non-Muslim becomes her head in her own private life. God has spared her from being under the authority of a non-Muslim husband.
‘Ijtihad’
Algerian feminists and rights activists, on the other hand, urge Muslim scholars to debate the controversial issue thoroughly to enable Algerian Muslim women to get married to non-Muslims in what is known in the Islamic jurisprudence as “Ijtihad” or juristic discernment.
“I know many women married to foreigners, who are suffering from denying their children Algerian citizenship,” lawyer and women’s rights activist Adia Ayat Zahi told IOL.
“It is true that Islam doesn’t permit marriage to non-Muslims, but we live now in the 21st century and I think that it’s high time scholars found a way out and gave women a free choice when it comes to marriage.”
Zahi further said that Algerians who fought alongside the French occupation (1830-1962) should also be granted Algerian citizenship if they are married to Algerian women in conformity with the president’s all-inclusive amnesty.
Lawyer Boujoma Ghashier, chairman of the Algerian League for Human Rights, said that Universal Declaration of Human Rights gives an even treatment for men and women.
A global female march for a charter giving women the same rights enjoyed by men gets underway Tuesday in Sao Paulo, Brazil and will come to an end in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in October after passing through over 50 countries.
The Women's Global Charter for Humanity was adopted by women's rights groups in Kigali, the Rwandan capital, in December, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Coinciding with International Women’s Day, organizers expected 30,000 women to attend Tuesday's start of the tour. The Burkina Faso capital was chosen as the final destination because of its poverty and low level of protection for women.