Palestinian Women Hope To Gain Divorce Rights
Activists are pushing for Gaza to join the West Bank in an initiative that will allow women to divorce without their husbands' permission.
The Supreme Religious Court in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip is considering legal amendments allowing women to divorce their husbands when they can show proof that their married life cannot go on.
The proposed amendment derives from a more moderate interpretation of Islam and is likely to face opposition by hard-line lawmakers from Hamas, the Islamic movement that runs the Palestinian enclave separately from the West Bank, which is ruled by President Mahmoud Abbas' secular Fatah party.
The Khula, or unconditional divorce law, gives women the choice to break up Islamic-approved relationships before or after marriage in exchange for giving up their financial rights. The dominant traditional version of divorce is that the man has the final and only word on it.
Hassan Al-Jojo, the head of the Supreme Religious Court in Gaza, said that while he received the proposal from the religious court in the West Bank, his court won’t be able to apply it before the beginning of 2014, requiring approval from the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) in Gaza — in other words, Hamas.
