Travel bans for divorcees defaulting on child, spousal support payments as authorities respond to personal status outcry

Divorced spouses failing to pay spousal or child support will be placed on travel ban and arrival watch lists, according to a decree issued by the Public Prosecution on Monday. The decision comes amid an outpouring of anger — from civil society to social media to the media — at the failings of the legal system to support families going through divorce and other intra-familial disputes that fall under the banner of personal status issues. The wave of criticism and calls for a new personal status law were prompted after blogger Bassant Soliman died by suicide in Alexandria after taking to social media to describe years of struggle to support her two children without financial support after her divorce. Travel bans were already present among the procedures in place for those refusing to pay, but the prosecution’s decision could help speed up implementation, according to lawyer Abdel Fattah Yahya, the head of the legal unit at the Egyptian Women’s Issues Foundation. “After obtaining a criminal judgment against a husband refusing to pay spousal or child support, we can notify the Passport Department to obtain a travel ban or arrival watch order,” Yahya told Mada Masr. But the process used to take around two months to complete, he said, “a period that could allow the person against whom the judgment was issued to flee abroad.” As per the new prosecution decision, spouses will be automatically added to travel ban lists upon the issue of a ruling proving their failure to make these payments. But the lawyer added that the decision does not address the larger crisis: the lengthy legal process required to pursue legal steps in these types of cases. The case must first be filed in the family courts. A round of appeal about the court-mandated value of the payment normally follows. This takes an average of one year, according to Yahya. If the ruling is still not implemented, the case is transferred to a misdemeanors court, and then there is another appeals circuit in the misdemeanors system — another year of litigation, on average. Yahya pointed out that “a wife will spend at least LE28,000 on this process, as this is the lowest fee a lawyer would accept during this period.” The existing legal framework also introduces other complications, said Yahya. The current set of laws that determine personal status are “unable to establish fair rules for setting alimony based on the husband’s income, or even to prove the husband’s income at all.” Feminist activist Elham Eidarous also told Mada Masr that determining these payments requires an accurate assessment of a father’s total income, which the state can typically only verify for those in the public sector or in fixed-salary positions. She said that in the absence of clear information, the burden of proving a father’s true income often falls on the wife. “ Justice dictates that the Public Prosecution should investigate the husband’s income,” said Yahya. The Public Prosecution’s move came on the heels of a Sunday decree from the justice minister to activate the use of existing articles that allow for the suspension of access to government services for spouses failing to make their spousal and child support payments. The head of the Board of Trustees of the New Woman Foundation, Nevin Obeid, expressed concern that the authorities steps could act as a stand-in for broader legislative reform in personal status issues. “The state has a history of issuing limited legislative or procedural amendments to compensate for its inability to enact a comprehensive new personal status law,” she told Mada Masr. After the news of Soliman’s death in Alexandria earlier this month prompted outcry about the lack of a legal framework to ensure families are supported during legal proceedings, the president issued a directive to the government instructing it to prepare and submit a comprehensive personal status law to Parliament. The government said that it was “working” on this step, but no draft law has been submitted to lawmakers for review. Proposals for such a law have been put forward repeatedly for decades, without significant change to the legal set-up. The post Travel bans for divorcees defaulting on child, spousal support payments as authorities respond to personal status outcry first appeared on Mada Masr .