A Muslim woman's sharia ordeal

Marina Jiménez:

For months, a Muslim woman living in Toronto tried to wring a divorce out of her local imam.

Under sharia law, her husband had to consent to the divorce-- even though he had abandoned the family four years earlier and married another woman in a South Asian country where polygamy is legal.

The imam told her that her spouse wanted $100,000 and all her gold jewellery, she said, asking that her identity not be disclosed because she fears retribution from her ex-husband, the imam and her community.

She managed to bargain him down to $5,000, money she had to borrow. She also agreed to give up all child-support payments and alimony, and not to take legal action against him in the future.

Without his consent, she could not remarry within her religion.

"The imam told me, 'there are some sharia conditions you must follow, we must come to a settlement within sharia.' I agreed because I was desperate," said the woman, 29, who uses the pseudonym Shinaz.

"If the mullah, our religious leader, didn't grant the divorce, then under sharia I would have lost custody of my son when he turned eight. Also, I could not remarry."

The issue of faith-based arbitration and whether to formally regulate sharia religious arbitration in Ontario has sparked an international debate.

The province's 1991 Arbitration Act provides for voluntary faith-based arbitration to resolve civil and family-law disputes.

The Ontario government is currently considering whether to accept the recommendations of a recent report that found that the existing system does not discriminate against women.

Critics say otherwise, and today, demonstrations against the act are planned in 12 cities in Canada and Europe including Amsterdam, London, Paris and Dusseldorf, in what activists say is part of a global battle between secular societies and "political Islam."

Shinaz is an observant Muslim, but she also describes herself as a modern woman who chooses not to wear hijab, works in the service sector and had the courage at least to try fighting for her rights -- even as she saw her family ostracized and shunned by her community.

She believes that her experience with faith-based arbitration reveals the difficulty many Muslim women face: Culturally and legally, under most interpretations of sharia, men have far more rights than women when it comes to inheritance, divorce, child-support payments and child-custody issues.

Canadian legal safeguards and training for imams cannot change this, she says, pointing out that her imam doesn't speak fluent English and has little knowledge of Canadian Charter rights.

"Women in Ontario should definitely not have to rely on sharia and mullahs and imams to resolve family disputes. People have to know what is going on," she said.

When the imam finally signed the talaq, divorce, in their community mosque, she felt nothing but anger and betrayal.

"I was so angry at the way I was treated, that this happens in a country like Canada. We come here to get better treatment," she said.

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