International Family Law News & Analysis

90% of Shari'a marriages invalid under Western law, leaving women doubly unprotected - new report

There is nothing in Western countries' laws that discriminates against Muslim marriages, but many immigrant wives -- 90%, says a new study -- are legally unmarried because there was no civil license or celebration, or because they are second, third or fourth wives. And that non-recognition is very convenient for the husbands, because as legal strangers the wives have no occupancy, property or maintenance rights under most Western countries' laws. Often, the women know nothing about this until it is too late. But does this mean that there should be less, or more, recognition of, and legal accomodation to, these marriages and Shari'a generally?

New report on UK sharia ‘marriages’ exposes “tip of the iceberg”

Aurat: Supporting Women, via the National Secular Society,  Wed, 10 Dec 2014

Based on "Equal and Free? 50 Muslim Women's Experiences of Marriage in Britain Today"

US implements international child/spousal support treaty with new legislation

Kansas City-area family law specialist Ron Nelson reports: 

"On September 29, 2014, President Obama signed HR 4980, “An Act to prevent and address sex trafficking of children in foster care, to extend and improve adoption incentives, and to improve international child support recovery” which implements the 2007 Hague Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance in the United States and requires that states enact the most recent version of UIFSA [the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act] on or before September 30, 2018."

 

The U.S. had been waiting for the passage of implementing legislation before formally joining the treaty, so that we will be ready to comply with it from Day 1.