Look after women, don’t make polygamy easier, say activists

PETALING JAYA: Vocal women’s rights group Sisters in Islam (SIS) has called on the Perak government to strengthen laws to safeguard the welfare of women instead of making it easier for husbands to enter into polygamous marriages.

Responding to the state’s plans to amend Section 23 of the Islamic Family Enactment (Perak) 2004 to make polygamy easier for Muslim men, SIS said it would be better to enact laws that compel husbands to pay nafkah, or maintenance costs, to their wives and children.

“Also, to ensure swift justice when they (their wives) need to face the shariah court system,” SIS communications manager Majidah Hashim told FMT.

With the proposed amendments, the shariah courts will have discretion on whether or not to call the first wife to court when arriving at a decision.

Under the existing enactment, the courts’ hands are tied if the first wife does not appear in court to state her case.

Majidah said it was distasteful for the Perak government to amend laws specifically to make it easier for husbands to have more than one wife.

She urged the authorities to view the wives’ absence from court not as an excuse but as a sign of deeper, more underlying issues.

Activist-lawyer Nik Elin Nik Rashid agreed that the state should focus more on getting fathers to pay maintenance for their children than on facilitating polygamy. In many cases, she said, polygamous marriages were why these fathers failed to pay up in the first place.

She added that polygamy degrades not only the wives but also the children of these men.

“What the Perak government wants to do is to dispense with the presence of a very important person who would be greatly affected by the polygamy,” she said.

She said the present law requires that all affected parties be present in court for the decision.

“That is a good law,” she said. “To make it even better, call the children too and ask if their nafkah has been regular, and whether the father has been giving them the necessary care as is his responsibility.” - FMT

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