Advocates welcome committee’s amendments addressing marriage exceptions, inheritance

AMMAN — Women’s groups on Monday welcomed amendments adopted by the Senate’s Legal Committee to the draft personal status law (PSL) increasing the age of marriage for women in exceptional cases to 16-years-old.

The Legal Committee also amended an article related to the “mandated will” or “wasiya wajiba” by giving inheritance rights to the grandchildren born to female children, as well as male children, a right that was previously only given to male grandchildren.

 The two major amendments met demands by women’s advocates following a two-day deliberation by the Lower House on December 11, which led to the house endorsing the law but making several amendments that “ignored many of their demands”.

The 2010 temporary PSL allowed marriage exceptions for minors who had completed the age of 15, while the amended version endorsed by the MPs earlier this week allows those who “turned 16” to tie the knot. A change in terminology which meant that, in reality, turning 16 means that the law can be applied only one day after the completion of age 15, critics have said.

The legal age of marriage in Jordan is 18 for men and women, but the law allowed for several exceptions for girls aged 15 and above, if a judge deemed it in their best interests.

 According to the Chief Islamic Justice Department’s official statistics, there were 77,700 marriage contracts issued in 2017, of which 10,434 (around 30 a day) involved marriages in which the wife was under the age of 18.

The statistics also showed that divorce cases amounted to 5,335 in 2017, in which 413 cases involved wives under age of 18.

The Jordanian National Commission for Women’s secretary general, Salma Nims, said the amendments by the Senate’s Legal Committee “are important steps to ensuring more equality for women in PSL”.

“The amendments reflect the efforts that were exerted by the women’s movement,” Nims told The Jordan Times.

Nims added that she was hopeful that “both Houses will reach a positive consensus on these articles when they hold a joint session soon”.

Regional director and head of programmes at the Ruwwad Organisation, Samar Dudin, was less welcoming, insisting that the PSL should be “entirely revisited in a comprehensive manner”.

“The new amendments by the Senate’s Legal Committee are good, but we really need to have a careful revision so that we can move towards a civil society that ensures complete gender equality,” Dudin told The Jordan Times.

She added that the women’s movement and the civil society should continue to lobby MPs and senators to adopt “our demands entirely”.

“We have to continue working on this issue and other matters that concern women’s equal rights, and to join our efforts with the female deputies and women senators who lobbied the legislative bodies at both Houses, which resulted in the positive changes we have seen in the Lower House of Parliament,” Dudin added. 

The draft law is expected to be discussed again in a joint session between MPs and the Senate on Wednesday.