4 - Postponing Equality in the Algerian Family Code

Summary

This chapter examines the 1984 Algerian Family Code and 2005 amendments governing marriage, divorce, marital property, child custody and guardianship, and parentage. Both the original Code and the amendments faced substantial challenges in their enactment and were drawn out over decades. Algerian women’s groups have had to advocate for reforms in a difficult context involving an entrenched state bureaucracy, military dominance, a decade long civil war between security forces and armed Islamist groups, discrimination against the Amazigh, and major natural disasters. The Code perpetuates inequality and discrimination against women, including limited access by women to divorce, the persistence of polygamy and unilateral divorce at will by the husband. 2005 amendments to the Code were only enacted by Presidential ordinance after legislative deadlock; women’s groups note that the reforms reflect concessions to the Islamists, by maintaining the mandatory presence of the male marital guardian (wali) for women at marriage.