Egyptian men demand joint child custody with women

CAIRO - June 1, 2022: Child custody and visitation rights for parents differ from one country to another in the Middle East. In some Gulf communities, for instance, custody is shared among both parents alternately, granting visitation rights to the non-custodian, while this right is exclusively and primarily given to women in other Arab societies.

In Egypt, where custody is granted to women and maternal relatives until the child turns 15 years old, as per Article 20 of the applicable Personal Status Law of 2005, men have raised their voices calling for equality with women in custody rights, especially after the government embarked on new amendments to the law.

“We call for reducing the time of women’s custody over children to be seven years in case of boys and nine years for girls, without giving children the right to choose with whom he/she wants to live,” said Reda Fekry, a 47-year-old father whose son is living with his ex-wife in Aswan, 847.3 km away from his residence in Cairo.

Fekry, who is the father of a seven-year-old boy, said that he only saw his son twice: when the child was six months old in Aswan and the second visit was in March 2022 in Cairo. “We are oppressed under the umbrella of this law,” he added.

He continued that it is financially unaffordable for him to travel monthly to see his son because the traveling costs are very high and he is currently unemployed after he had been working in a company for 1,500 EGP (US$80.69) per month. “Traveling and staying there [in Aswan] for only two days could cost me at least 1,500 EGP,” he said.

Fekry is one of the thousands of fathers who have chosen not to file cases to legally see their children in order not to negatively affect the psychological behavior of the child. Although hundreds of separated parents prefer to settle parenting duties among themselves instead of resorting to the courts, about 188,908 visitation cases were ruled in favor of men in Egypt over the past two years, according to data obtained exclusively from the Egyptian Ministry of Justice.

“In the period between December 2019 and December 2021, the number of family rulings that were issued nationwide reached 1,302,812,” Egyptian Minister of Justice Omar Marwan stated previously. This number includes 14.5% for visitation verdicts given over the same period, an official at the ministry told Jusoor Post. However, other cases are still waiting for court decisions.

There are two reasons that push divorcés to go to courts; first, some women deliberately deprive fathers of seeing their children as a punishment or out of their fear of kidnapping the children, while the second is out of spite by men against women, as stated by Director of the Economic and Social Program at the New Women Organization Mai Saleh.

No law in Egypt prohibits a father’s right to visitation even if the father does not ask for this right nor apply for it, Rasha Omar, a psychological expert at Abdeen Family Court in downtown Cairo and Ph.D. researcher in the Faculty of Arts at Cairo University, told Jusoor Post.

On the contrary, Omar continued, if the mother was absent at the visitation time and abstained from bringing the child without excuses for three times, the right of custody will be relinquished temporarily and then given to another female custodian. She noted that in spite of the law guaranteeing the right to visitation time for parents, some of them abduct their children.

A video circulated on social media in Egypt on May 20, 2022, showing a mother and her little girl beaten by her ex-husband and his relatives at a visitation place. The wife’s uncle posted on his unverified Facebook account that his niece (Nouran El Balqa), her daughter and her sisters were beaten by Balqa’s ex-husband and his family. The uncle said that the ex-husband tried to abduct the child.

‘Hosting’ as a solution

To find a solution, the Egyptian government, in cooperation with the National Council for Women and Al-Azhar Institution (Egypt’s top Sunni authority), as well as other concerned bodies, is working on drafting new amendments to the Personal Status Law, including an article allowing fathers the right to host their children at their homes for a certain number of days a year. The current law limits visitation rights to only certain hours at adequate places determined by a court judge. 

“We are not against the principle of hosting, but the thing that we care about the most is decreasing the child’s age of custody to seven years and then this [the custody] right shall afterward, by law, be given to the non-custodial party,” said Fekry, adding, “However, the current situation is unfair.”

Saied El Arabawy, an activist for men’s rights in the Personal Status Law, told Jusoor Post that the National Council for Women calls only for what women need without putting into consideration the religious aspects. “Such suggested amendments are meaningless,” he said.

Arabawy added that the right to custody should be shared between the parents for nine years each “for the sake of the child’s rearing and his behavior in the society.”

“We call for applying periodic psychological examinations for both parents during the divorce and during their period of custody to ensure that the children are growing up in a healthy domestic atmosphere,” he said, adding, “If the father is deprived of his parental right, he would suffer psychological stress.”

Arabawy said that family court judges have to primarily consider the child’s safety and security on all levels by applying harsh penalties for any party of parents who violate the child’s rights. He also said that some judges do not abide by the applicable laws for the sake of the children, giving an example of a case in which the presiding judge ruled that a father in Alexandria has the right to visit and host his daughter as long as the applicable law does not prohibit the principle of hosting.

According to the Alexandria Family Court’s ruling, of which Jusoor Post obtained a copy, the judge relied on Paragraph 3 of Article 9 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, stipulating, “States Parties shall respect the right of the child who is separated from one or both parents to maintain personal relations and direct contact with both parents on a regular basis, except if it is contrary to the child's best interests.”

However, Jusoor Post contacted family court experts who said it is rare that a court applies the right to host in the favor of the father.

As for hosting, Rasha Omar said that it is not currently a right, but it must be legalized by putting specific controls and measures that prevent cases of abducting children by their fathers, as happens in several cases. “I have heard stories about children who are kidnapped by non-custodians who are trouble makers as a result of maliciousness and stubbornness,” she said.

‘Hosting means abduction’

The new amendments to the hosting time have stricken fear into some women’s hearts, as non-custodians may abduct and travel abroad with their children during the hosting period. Asmaa, a 33-year-old mother, said that if the new amendment of the hosting article was passed, her ex-husband would kidnap her four-year-old daughter.

“Hosting, for me, means abduction,” she said in an interview with Jusoor Post, noting that her ex-husband had threatened to take the little girl away from her in order to give up the apartment where she and the daughter are living. “He would use the right to host as a weapon against me to take the apartment, as he did previously when he refused to register the little girl [for a birth certificate] in order to deny my right to the furniture,” she continued.

Speaking about the new amendments, former Deputy Chairman of Human Rights Committee at the parliament Margaret Azer said, “We care about children. The legislator is not biased towards men or women.”

“When it comes to custody rights, I have questions. Will the father be able to take care of children at the age of seven or nine? I don't take it for granted. He cannot know their needs. The woman’s custody is necessary, not for the woman, but for the child,” she continued.

She called for adopting new decisions that guarantee that the father cannot take his child away and escape outside the country or the governorate.

However, Azer has a positive concept regarding the right of hosting, saying, “If the father is able to meet his son certain days a week, he will have a greater chance of getting to know him, but lowering the age of custody is not in the interest of the children, because the husband cannot take care of a child at the age of seven or nine.”

Although some parents call for balanced child custody rights, they are being tarred with the same brush of troublemaker divorcés, regardless of the interests of their offspring.

Ibrahim Kasim contributed to this story