JEDDAH — Women in Jeddah on Thursday called for the creation of a department at courts that deal only with distributing inheritance. They also called for issuing penalties if a family representative does not disburse any inheritance within a specific period of time. “Many families sometimes have to wait 10 years or more for their inheritance to be distributed, which can result in a variety of issues,” said Aisha Al-Manie, a Saudi businesswoman and member of the organizing team for the one-day symposium on women and commercial inheritance and family law. The event was organized by the Businesswomen's Forum of the Eastern Province (BWF-EP) in cooperation with the law office of Sheikh Abdulaziz Al-Qassim. Al-Manie said that they are seeking to increase awareness among women by holding such events. She told Saudi Gazette that the group has called for a maximum age of 18 for women to have a male guardian. After this age a woman should be responsible for herself except in marriage contracts. According to her, 75 percent of all cases in courts are related to women and therefore holding seminars that address women issues are crucial. “We are not here to complain and listen to complaints,” said Samira Islam, who has waited 33 years for a case to be resolved. She called for setting a number of recommendations that should be given to Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah and the Ministry of Justice directly without the need to go through the Shoura Council. The most challenging issue that women face in waqf (endowment) is when the father dies and only his male children can benefit from the waqf. This inequality, said Ahlam Al-Awad, author of a book on waqf, is happening only due to cultural factors and not because of Shariah laws. Even terminologies that have been invented in this regard do not have any reference in Qur'an or Prophetic teachings, she said. This culture that prevents women from benefiting from waqf is because their children do not carry the family name of their mothers. Ahlam said that she has sent her recommendations to the higher authorities and the file has been transferred to the Ministry of Justice, which has not gotten back to her. Other factors that prevent women from benefiting from waqf include the father discriminating against his daughters when specifying who should benefit from the waqf. A woman's brothers could also tamper with the waqf document so that only men in the family benefit, the symposium was told. Ahlam called for referring back to Shariah teachings in order to stop any discrimination between men and women in waqf distribution. The current practices, she said, will always make men rich while women remain poor. Dalal Al-Zaid, a Bahrain Shoura Council member and legal consultant, said women should benefit from the decision-makers who are now pro-women and should also air their issues in the media. She suggested that women should be trained to run their own businesses to prevent them from facing any future issues. Participants gave a rapturous reception to a woman who said that she has just received her khula (divorce upon request) document after struggling for the past 10 years. After getting her divorce contract and taking care of her children on her own for the past 10 years, the woman is now hoping to get financial aid for all the years that her ex-husband did not help. Al-Zaid advised the woman to contact her ex-husband's banks to find out his financial status and collect details that could help her claim her children's financial rights.
