nance. Many judges do not think domestic violence
a legitimate ground to abrogate from the rules on
nusyuz behavior.
In the case of guardianship of children, decision-
making about the person and the property of
minors are consistently deemed to be vested in the
father or, in his absence, his relatives. Physical care,
on the other hand, is usually considered the pri-
mary responsibility of the mother. In cases of
divorce, women find this problematic since while
caring for their children they are not able to decide
on issues such as their children’s birth registration
and schooling.
Efforts to eradicate problems Muslim women
face in obtaining access to the legal systems in the
Southeast Asian region are substantially pervasive.
They are carried out at local levels and regionally.
In general, female advocacy activities are not insti-
gated by religious-based but by cross-cultural
organizations. However, where the Muslim popu-
lation is the majority, programs that focus on the
well-being of Muslim women often feature as
major undertakings. Legal reform of the Islamic
law structure is central to these pursuits.
Bibliography
A. A. An-Na±im (ed.), Islamic family law in a changing
world. A global resource book, London 2002.
A. H. Buang (ed.), Islamic law in Syariah courts in
Malaysia [in Malay], Kuala Lumpur 1998.
Z. Kamaruddin (ed.), Islamic family law issues 2000,
Kuala Lumpur 2001.
Sisters in Islam Regional Workshop, Islamic family law
and justice for Muslim women. Divorce. Singapore,
Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, unpublished, Kuala
Lumpur 2001.
——, Islamic family law and justice for Muslim women.
Financial provisions. Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines,
Malaysia, unpublished, Kuala Lumpur 2001.
A. M. Yaacob (ed.), Islamic family law and women in
ASEAN countries [in Malay], Kuala Lumpur 1999.
Noraida EndutSub-Saharan AfricaIntroduction
The access of women to legal systems is integral
to the consolidation of democracy and pursuit of
good governance through the rule of law. The rule
of law presupposes parity of rights, privileges, and
opportunities for women to participate in and
affect public deliberations, and gain greater control
over their lives. Consistent with evolving interna-
tional objectives, most national constitutions espouse
anti-discrimination principles. However, the sig-
nificance of inclusive paradigms and guarantees is
circumscribed by gender stratification and asym-
sub-saharan africa 381metry. The issues and challenges of women’s access
to the legal system in Sub-Saharan Africa are not
peculiar. They share striking parallels with similar
concerns in other parts of the world. In the African
context, the concerns are exacerbated by cutbacks
in social spending and the exigencies of oppo-
sitional movements fueled by legitimacy crises
concerning the inherent inequities of the global
political economy.
Legal pluralism characterizes many Sub-Saharan
African states where contemporary legal institutions
hammered out during the early post-independence
years show various degrees of accommodation to
customary, Islamic, and European-derived systems
of law. There is considerable variation throughout
the region regarding how central a role Sharì≠a
(Islamic religious law) is accorded, from limited,
mixed jurisdiction in minority Muslim states such
as Ghana, Kenya, and Tanzania, to the regional
authority of northern Nigeria, to the use of Sharì≠a
as civil code in Sudan. However, there are some
underlying similarities and these have resonance
for women’s experiences of the law. The Sharì≠a has
long derived power in African societies because it is
written law, unlike the oral-memory nature of cus-
tomary law and in counterpoint to the written law
of Europeans. It guarantees women basic rights
in marriage, divorce, adoption, inheritance, and
property. Most Sub-Saharan countries have a
national Sharì≠a court of appeals to adjudicate dis-
putes pertaining to family matters even where other
kinds of law, such as criminal or commercial, have
superseded Islamic law. Sharì≠a can therefore be
applied to various aspects of life, varying by coun-
try in Muslim Africa, but it will always include the
domestic concerns of women. For many, Islamic
law is embodied in the person of the local qà∂ì
(Muslim scholar/judge) who hears disputes. The
qà∂ìs have knowledge of the extensive written com-
mentary on the Sharì≠a and grasp the processes of
selectivity, procedural precedent, and reinterpreta-
tion that can allow for a flexible and vital system.
In recent decades, thinly-veiled protests against
eroding material bases of patriarchal privileges and
shifting thresholds of traditional authority are
increasingly proffered to justify the systematic im-
position of the Sharì≠a to govern gender relations,
as in the high-profile case of the twelve northern-
most Nigerian states. Religious injunctions and
prohibitions are not the only determinants of
women’s access; nor are they invariably adverse.
In interrogating and contemplating strategies to
enhance the access of women to the legal system,
the premium placed on resource distribution under
the Sharì≠a is noteworthy. In fact, there are grounds