Women’s movement announces sit-in for session on Personal Status Law

AMMAN — The women’s movement on Thursday said they will start a petition to lobby MPs ahead of an expected joint session on Monday to vote on amendments to the Personal Status Law.

The women’s movement also plans to head to the Parliament’s headquarters early on Monday to stage a sit-in for their demands of increasing the legal age of marriage and to demand more rights for female children, according to a statement from the Jordanian National Commission of Women (JNCW) on behalf of the women’s movement.

The women’s movement has also drafted a letter that will be sent to the representatives of both Houses with stories of girls who were forced to marry at a young age and suffered as a result, according to the JNCW statement.

On Sunday night, the JNCW maintained, activists will start an electronic campaign that will include several hash tags reflecting their demands.

“Leaders of the women’s movement will also reach out to the officials at Parliament to ensure that they will be present on the balconies on the day of the voting,” according to the JNCW statement.

In recent weeks, the Lower House voted to maintain the legal age of marriage exceptions for boys and girls at 15 years old.

But last week, the Senate upheld its previous decision to increase the age of marriage for women in exceptional cases to 16 years old and to amend an article related to the “mandated will” or “wasiya wajiba”, by giving inheritance rights to the grandchildren of female children, as well as male children; a right previously only given to male grandchildren.

The Lower House previously voted against giving female children the same inheritance rights as male children.

The differences in opinion between the two Houses have led to a joint session expected to be held on Monday.

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.

Government statistics indicated that divorce cases among individuals under 18 amounted to 5,335 in 2017, of which, 413 cases involved wives under the age of 18.