On August 11th Tuesday, a latest report urged the Government to make the registration of sharia Muslim marriages mandatory. The report ‘Fallen Through the Cracks’ observed that the government must overcome the fear of being labelled "Islamophobic" in a bid to protect the legal rights of numerous Muslim women.
The report published by Civitas think tank estimates that every year there are about 100,000 sharia marriages in the UK of which up to 75 per cent are believed to be unregistered. It states that many Muslim women are unaware that they lack legal protection and access to marital rights after they have got married in an unregistered ceremony. These women in such unregistered religious-only marriages, divorce has no legal status in UK civil or family law. Thus, they are often left destitute, without financial assets or property as well as being shunned by their community besides being victims of domestic abuse in some cases.
The report cites a number of case studies featuring Muslim women in "marital captivity" and forced to hand over custody of their children in return for a divorce. It recommends that the current legislation be amended to make the registration of all religious marriages in England and Wales mandatory, in line with the proposals of the Marriage Act 1949 (Amendment) Bill.
It also calls for the Divorce (Religious Marriages) Act 2002 to be extended to cover Islamic divorces, as was previously achieved for the Jewish community, and suggests an education campaign be launched to make people more aware of the consequences of unregistered religious-only marriages.
