Saudi widows, divorcees to have family books
Ministry move will help address high rate of family status cases before courts
In a breakthrough for the drive to have more rights, divorcees or widowed women in Saudi Arabia will be allowed to have their own family books.
The practice in the kingdom has been to provide only husbands with the family book required from families to complete government or legal procedures.
However, the interior ministry is about to amend the system and allow women who lost their husbands or were divorced to acquire the family book, Saudi daily Al Riyadh reported yesterday.
The decision will help put an end to injustices suffered by women in the absence of the family book following the death of the husband or divorce. Women have often reported unfair behaviour and unjust attitudes from their former husbands who at times resorted to putting pressure on them to deny them some administrative matters.
According to Al Riyadh, the decision to grant family books to women was made after the rate of family dispute cases at the Saudi courts rose dramatically. The justice ministry has recently said that 65 per cent of the cases reviewed by courts in Saudi Arabia were related to the family and to the personal status.
The cases of divorced women and their children and of women abandoned by their husbands, but without divorcing them topped the list, the ministry said.
It added that the deficiencies in the system and the low level of awareness about family rights were the major reasons for the problems afflicting Saudi women.
Three women and one man from the Shura Council, the advisory body, have recently presented a proposal to amend the family regulations and grant women more rights at the level of family and the society.
The amendments also sought to guarantee a greater recognition of women and a status equal to that of men in rights and duties, the daily said.
Under the amendments, mothers will also be given rights that the system drafted 29 years ago had overlooked.
Princess Sara Al Faisal, Dr Haya Al Munai, Dr Lateefa Al Shaalan and Dr Nasser Bin Dawood proposed the amendments that define the family book as an official document that identifies the relationship between the sons and daughters under the age of 15 with their parents.