“I am very happy with the hashtag #Wilayah_Haqqi (Guardianship is My Right) because of the amount of oppression that women are subjected to. This happens because of laws that have nothing to do with Sharia and that consequently have a negative impact on the children. We miss you, mother, and have faith that your kindness to me and Mohammed will let Allah heal you from what you lived through."
My parents separated when I was about 4 years old. My father disappeared from our lives and lived in Egypt, and I didn't see him again until I was about 18. All that time my mother was the only one responsible for me and my two siblings. When I was about 12 years old, I had the opportunity to travel to participate in a scout camp in Egypt and needed a passport to leave. That’s when we found out that my mother - who is the only guardian I have ever known - could not give me the passport and that we needed my father. But, even though he was still in Egypt, my father did not even know where my paternal grandfather or uncle was."
Introduction
The #Wilayah_Haqqi (Guardianship is My Right) campaign, launched after the Women and Memory Foundation (WMF) issued a protest statement rejecting the draft of the new Personal Status Law, provided a vivid example of the success of collective feminist mobilization in Egypt. Activists, human rights defenders, housewives, and working women from different professions shared their pain, united by their sense of injustice about a law that made them second-class citizens.
The campaign opened the door for a wide range of ordinary Egyptian women, using the hashtag on social media to express their suffering under an unjust law that restricts women's freedoms in the private sphere. It is undeniable that the campaign and the broad societal momentum it created reflected Egyptian women's pain and sense of historical injustice. As an online act of social activism, the campaign sought to unveil the unspoken, commonplace situations that women have to deal with. A situation created by a patriarchal culture and political regime that supported decades of injustice with religious interpretations and cultural legacies.
Broad feminist sectors were able to access the social media space and express their rejection of further guardianship over women and their treatment as second-class citizens. The campaign was able to carve out a space, which we can call a space to vent, share, or speak out, through which the voice of Egyptian women reached policymakers in Egypt. Theirs was a voice that categorically rejected further injustice, a law that does not help protect the interests of the family and children, and a system of laws that undermine their ability to move in their own circles.
The campaign came as a rejection of the new draft Personal Status Law put forward by the Egyptian government in February 2021, which triggered large pushback among large sectors of both feminist organizations and members of society in general. This was after the Cabinet gave final approval to the draft law and referred it to the House of Representatives for discussion without a public debate. Reforming the system of personal status laws has long been a priority on the agenda of feminist movements in Egypt, and they have tried to change several proposals over the decades, ending with partial amendments to a law that was passed more than a century ago. These partial amendments did not succeed in achieving real reform that would have modified the philosophy of the law, which still entrenches unequal power relations within the institution of marriage and perpetuates a patriarchal culture that uses religious and cultural justifications to maintain a lower status for women vis-à-vis men. The draft law came with some limited amendments, such as moving the father's custody of children from the 18th to the 4th level, legalizing the status of engagement, and emphasizing the right of visits and hosting. However, the law as a whole did not embody a new philosophy based on the principles of justice and equality, especially in matters of personal status. Nor did it respond to a long-standing feminist movement that has been demanding real change to ensure women are treated as full-fledged citizens. For example, Article 6 of the draft law gives a woman's guardian the right to request the annulment of the marriage contract if he deems the two parties to be incompatible. Although women in Egypt have achieved many gains since the 1920s, such as obtaining the right to vote, running for political office, and having a significant presence in the public sphere, women in their private sphere are still dominated by a patriarchal society. The campaign attempted to highlight the extent of the discrepancy between the rights that women and feminist movements have won in the public sphere and the diminishing rights and presence in the private sphere. It is not an exaggeration to say that the campaign succeeded ably in summoning stakeholders to try to amplify women's voices to influence policymakers in Egypt, especially by showing that the draft was not subjected to social debate before it was sent to parliament.
This paper relies mainly on the methodology relating to the social construction of public issues, as developed by Eric Nouveau, to understand how a societal issue develops into a public issue and then reaches the policy agenda. It starts by tracing how an issue is identified and defined, then the processes of framing and narrative production, justification, dissemination, and finally the presentation of viable alternatives. For the analysis, this paper relied on following the campaign, its activities and interactions on social media, and the subsequent extensive coverage on various media outlets.
Issue Identification
The campaign cleverly used several lenses to identify and define the issue, keeping the campaign's demands away from what is considered ‘political’ in order to avoid any prosecution of specific individuals or organizations. The first lens is the legal one, related to the underlying principles of the proposed project. This is the same issue embodied by the system of personal status laws and other legal regulations that treat women as incompetent and in need of a male relative (be it a father, husband, brother, grandfather, or uncle) from her family or her husband's family as a guardian of her private affairs. This guardianship extends to her children and their financial and educational interests as well. The consequences of this law would harm the interests not only of women but also of children and the family in general. This would occur due to the lengthy legal procedures and arrangements, as well as the litigation procedures in the event of a woman's divorce or the death or absence of the husband. Dr. Huda al-Sadda, a professor of English literature at Cairo University and one of the founders of the WMF, said that “the new draft law perpetuates women's suffering from incomplete citizenship and continues the contradiction between the rights they have obtained in the public sphere and the absence of rights in the private sphere.” “A minister who represents the State in international fora does not have guardianship over her children and cannot withdraw their papers from school without the father's presence. A bank manager who deals with millions in funds and agreements cannot deposit savings funds for her underage children in the bank; the father is the legal guardian and controls their accounts until they reach the age of majority.” By this, Al-Sada means that the suffering is the same across economic and political divides, as all women are equally discriminated against under the law. The draft law represents a clear diminution of women's rights in Egypt, in contradiction to the official political discourse that is keen to emphasize the political, social, economic, and social empowerment of Egyptian women. It also contradicts Egypt's national and international commitments, as reflected in the National Strategy for the Empowerment of Egyptian Women.
The second lens through which the issue was identified, which the campaign tried to emphasize after the hashtag went viral and was picked up by the visual and written media, is the policy level, i.e. the decisions and laws that concern women and how they are drafted.
Narrative Production and Issue Framing
When the draft law was leaked in February 2021, many feminist organizations protested against the text which disappointed the hopes of Egyptian feminist movements who have long demanded real changes in the interests of justice and equity. The most important of these protests, which can perhaps be described as the founding statement of the campaign, was the WMF’s protest tweet and statement, which carried the hashtag #Wilayah Hakki. This led many Egyptian women from different sectors and segments of society to express the injustices suffered under the current Personal Status Law governing child guardianship, marriage, divorce, and litigation. As previously mentioned, the current law deprives women of guardianship over their children's financial and educational affairs and renders them unable to manage their children's affairs in the absence of a husband due to death, separation, absence, or refusal to fulfill his duties. It cannot be overlooked that the campaign started in light of a societal and media momentum driven by other campaigns and initiatives such as the “No to Harassment” campaign, ) launched in Egypt after repeated incidents of harassment, and the “Me Too” campaign.
In this context, the campaign chose to rely on the narrative of the power of storytelling to utilize a space that many women had used to express their grievances with guardianship and other issues that prevent them from exercising their rights in the private sphere. The power of storytelling not only opened the door to discuss guardianship issues but also many other issues where women are legally forbidden from deciding without the consent of the father or husband. This can even include surgical procedures such as removing the uterus, for any reason, or a cesarean section. By sharing their stories using the hashtag, women from all walks of life were able to break what they thought was the norm, and society was confronted with a long silence that had previously been considered normal.
All of this created momentum that prompted many local and regional media outlets, including newspapers and television, to cover the campaign and host legal experts, activists, activists, ordinary women, and parliamentarians. Many television interviews, for example on Egyptian state television and Egyptian satellite channels, hosted women who have gone through crises and issues regarding guardianship. Some women shared their issues with finding housing without a guardian, hotels refusing to host them, or even women who needed surgery and were refused by the hospital until they had a guardian's consent.
For example, channels such as BBC Arabic, Sky News Arabia, and France24 covered the campaign and highlighted the tweets of Egyptian women who shared their stories through the hashtag, showing the unfairness of the current law governing personal status issues. They also shared details of the issues they faced as a result of the current guardianship arrangements. “We are second-class viewers in this society,” commented host Lamees El Hadidi on her show Kelma Akhira, which aired on OnTV on March 16, 2021.
The campaign opened the door to ordinary women whose voices had not previously been heard. Rather than just the minister, ambassador, or member of parliament, the simple housewife or working woman, regardless of her work and level of education, a doctor, an engineer, or a university professor, were all able to raise their voices. The campaign provided an unprecedented space for many women to share their testimonies from the painful reality that many of them live on a daily basis.
The second narrative produced by the campaign, depending on how the issue is mapped, is the narrative of a base minimum for human rights and the idea of women's diminished citizenship in general. The campaign started on social media and moved to various media circles, be they public and private, local and regional, allowing for the mobilization of feminist organizations and academic circles to show the extent of the contradiction between the gains Egyptian women have achieved in the public sphere and the rights eroded in the private sphere. It can thus be said that the campaign laid the groundwork for negotiation with the State on the principles of human rights and women’s rights, a space larger than the disagreement over personal status issues and the dismissive voices that the status of women is fine and does not need to be reviewed. This human rights background has enabled many feminist organizations and activists to develop a discourse that emphasizes the fact that this draft is a step back from Egypt's position, the State's commitment to support women's rights, and even a downgrading of Egyptian women's international standing.
Commenting on the campaign, Sheikh Ahmed al-Turk, an Al-Azhar scholar, said that the natural guardianship is that of the husband and is a mandate, not a privilege. He added that just as the husband has rights such as guardianship, he also has duties that must be fulfilled. In various press statements, Al-Turk also referred to “the need to amend the application of the guardianship law to suit each case, without prejudice to the rules of Islamic law.” He stated that every woman who is truly affected by the man's guardianship should rely on the judiciary and establish a real lawsuit to abolish her husband's guardianship.
On the other hand, soap operas played an important role in mobilizing public opinion and expressing the general rejection shown by women through online platforms and later through more traditional media. The emergence of two shows that were broadcast during Ramadan in 2022 and 2023, “Faten Amal Harbi” and “Under Guardianship”, contributed to supporting the mobilization and momentum at the popular level, providing a stark depiction of the suffering of ordinary women regarding educational and financial guardianship when a woman is divorced or her husband dies.
How Did the Campaign Justify Its Demands?
Many feminist organizations have pointed out that treating women as citizens with diminished legal capacity exposes many ordinary women citizens and their children to serious harm. As such, the law is not only unfair to women but also dangerous to the stability of the Egyptian family in general. Many activists, human rights defenders, and lawyers have argued that, although Egyptian women have achieved much in the public sphere, they still suffer when it comes to women and their rights in the private sphere. This is even compared to the situation of women in other Arab countries, where laws rely on more enlightened interpretations of Islamic jurisprudence and Sharia, such as in Morocco. In various newspaper articles and television interviews, many emphasized that the logic of the objection is not only for women and their rights in the private sphere but also for the rights of the family and children. The main issue lies in the philosophy of the current law and the proposed draft, both of which are unfair and unjust to Egyptian women.
For proof of this, we need only examine data released by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics on the rates of divorce and repudiation in Egypt. The number of divorces reached 222,000, compared to 800,000 marriages, and 8,000 cases went to court, including 7,000 cases of khula (woman-initiated divorce). It must be kept in mind that it takes 18 months to file for khula and 32 months until a woman gets a divorce and receives alimony for her children, for example. All of this shows the depth of the issue, which extends far beyond the educational and financial mandate.
The campaign also emphasized that previous attempts to propose draft laws have always carried the same flaws and the same incomplete philosophy that places women in a subordinate position to men or with reduced citizenship. For example, in 2011, Counselor Abdullah Baja, head of the Family Appeals Court, submitted a decree to amend the draft Personal Status and Family Law (No. 25 of January 2011) to Prime Minister Essam Sharaf. In the first Article, Baja demanded the abolition of khula, and in the third Article, the mother's custody would end when the boy reaches the age of seven and the girl reaches the age of ten. In Article 4, the father would have sole educational jurisdiction and, only if the mother is harmed would she have recourse to the judiciary. The fifth article stipulates that obedience will be enforced by force if the wife does not object to the warning within the deadline, or a final judgment is issued that she must obey. This is in addition to suspending her alimony until she obeys. In response to this unfair draft, which was not submitted to community dialogue, a group of feminist organizations submitted a statement of protest to Dr. Essam Sharaf, then-Prime Minister, rejecting any draft law in general, and any draft Personal Status Law in particular, in light of the security vacuum. The draft law is unfair to Egyptian women and children and does not reflect the democratic climate that the January Revolution is trying to build in Egypt.
In addition to the previous attempt, another draft law came out in March 2019, submitted by Al-Azhar Al-Sharif - the official religious institution in Egypt - and prepared by the Council of Senior Scholars with the assistance of specialists interested in children, women, and family issues, derived from Islamic law. By looking at the articles of the draft law, we can see the official religious institution's view of women and its position on the issue of women's guardianship. Article 6 of the draft law stipulates that a woman's guardian does not have the right to prevent her from marrying a suitable man she is satisfied with without due reason, and the judge may marry her if the matter is referred to him. The article also stipulates that the woman's guardian has the right to resort to the judiciary to annul the marriage before entry if the woman marries herself to an unsuitable man or without the same dowry at the time of the contract, or immediately upon learning of it. As for the right of educational guardianship, Article No. (103) of the 2019 draft law stipulates that educational guardianship in choosing the quality of education belongs to the father and mother by mutual consent but, in cases of dispute, the decision is the father’s, provided that the quality of education is not less than that of the ward’s peers. The father must pay all fees, transportation expenses, school supplies, etc. to ensure the child receives a proper education, while the custodian has guardianship in all other respects. Article 105 of the draft law stipulates that financial guardianship is the right of the father and then the grandfather if the father has not chosen a guardian. The draft law denies women the autonomy to make decisions about their personal lives. It also denies them the right to manage their children's educational and financial affairs, restricting financial guardianship to the father and grandfather. The mother is also deprived of any role in making decisions related to the protection of her children's assets, despite living in a society where female-headed households account for nearly one-third of all households. In addition to this, the proposal eliminates the mother's educational guardianship, taken away after a long struggle to save children from having their school life become a tool of abuse. Many parents would either withdraw the school file and not send the child to school, change the education system, lower the level, or change the address of the school from one governorate to another. This bill was not presented to the House of Representatives due to opposition.
The Campaign’s Spread: Strategies and Coverage
The campaign succeeded in achieving a wide appeal to a wide range of people, both women and men. By following the testimonies shared through the hashtag, we can see that men also participated, sharing their stories and the stories of their mothers who suffered due to divorce and the subsequent long litigation process, or due to educational and financial guardianship. There is no doubt that the campaign's use of the same hashtag on social media opened a space for organic spread and safe interaction without fear of disclosure or worrying about the consequences of sharing experiences, especially for women. This was regardless of matters of guardianship and custody of children or various life issues related to women such as traveling, renting a house, staying in a hotel, or having surgery without a legal guardian. The organic spread of the campaign reached various media outlets, which asked questions such as: What is it? What is the reason behind Egyptian women's anger? What are the demands put forward by the guardianship campaign? Many feminist activists continued to appear on various platforms or media outlets to talk and document women's stories about their suffering and demand real and radical reform. Online events and panel discussions were also organized by some feminist organizations.
On the policy side, some think tanks and specialized centers centered their research and discussions on the proposed draft law and the discussion of women's rights in the private and public spheres, aiming to understand how policies affecting women's lives are made, identify the most important influential actors, and explore why most policies affecting women's lives are always superficial. This looks in particular at policies adopted by the political authority only and why there is no grassroots feminist movement that would create a social mobilization capable of changing the Egyptian collective consciousness and influencing decision-makers. Such meetings and studies contributed to spreading the campaign and its demands among activists, the media, and academic circles.
Formulating Demands and Alternatives
In general, the demands of many feminist organizations converged on the need for a new civil Personal Status Law, not just improvements or minor amendments to the current law. There is an urgent need for a fairer law that treats women in Egypt as full citizens with full legal capacity and allows them control over their own affairs and those of their children, whether in the event of divorce, separation from the husband, or the husband's absence for any reason. The campaign also emphasized the importance of reviewing other laws that negatively affect women's exercise of their rights in the public and private spheres. Many civil society institutions and women's organizations pointed out that there are many proposals and drafts that need serious discussion and a real community dialogue that includes all societal and official parties.
In this context, the Centre for Egyptian Women Legal Assistance (CELWA) submitted a set of recommendations and proposals to the Ministry of Justice and a committee formed by ten judges to reconsider the draft Personal Status Law, after CELWA launched a campaign in support of the El-Wilayah Haqqi campaign with the hashtag #FairFamilyLaw. These proposals included several amendments, including allowing children to be hosted by the non-custodial party while ensuring their return to the ruling party, amending the father's ranking in custody eligibility to be next to the mother, not documenting divorce until after women obtain their rights guaranteed by law upon divorce, the right of a raped woman to attribute her child to the rapist, and the possibility of including in the marriage contract conditions such as sharing the wealth acquired during marriage upon divorce and determining how this is done in terms of the percentage allocated to each party. In addition, the proposals submitted by CELWA to the drafting committee of the new Personal Status Law included a proposal to form consultatory committees to ensure broader participation in the drafting of the new law. In an attempt to build on the space gained by the campaign, CELWA and WMF launched a new social media campaign called “Toward a Just Family Law”, which concluded its activities in March 2022 with a statement in which the two organizations presented, through multiple meetings with experts, jurists, and activists, a summary of the activities that took place during the campaign. It also highlighted the main points of discrimination against women that prevent them from enjoying full legal control over themselves and their bodies and from being able to facilitate the affairs of their children. The final statement of the campaign called for signing a statement demanding a balanced family law that takes into account the interests of the family and the child first, and does not diminish women's rights last. The statement was signed by 60 members of parliament, led by MP Nashwa El-Deeb, who adopted the statement of the campaign for a fair family law.
In the framework of recording the success of the conquered spaces, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi appeared as a guest of host Azza Mostafa on her TV program Qalet al-Tahrir on Sadi al-Balad TV, stressing that he would not approve an unbalanced law or a law that diminishes the rights of Egyptian women in general, that the Egyptian family is the most important, and that the goal of any law is fairness and a balance that preserves the family and its stability, reduces divorce rates, and modifies the conditions of the marriage contract. In another interview, the President commented that the State is keen to hold a community dialogue on the law. The National Council for Women in Egypt also conducted a comparative study of some Islamic and Arab countries and analyzed the legal structures related to personal status. In addition, the issues of educational and financial guardianship were included in the national dialogue sessions following the airing of “Under Guardianship” in Ramadan 2023.
Conclusion
The guardianship campaign represented a model for a collective feminist mobilization that carried the demands and concerns of Egyptian feminist movements over many decades, calling for the need to reconsider the personal status system in Egypt. Through the levels of recruitment, narrative building, and strategic dissemination of its demands, the campaign was able to call on voiceless women to make their voices present and strong, rejecting any law or policy that represents a regression of women's status. The campaign confronted society and decision-makers with the contradiction between the patriarchal State claiming to support Egyptian women and their presence in the public sphere through political representation in the Egyptian government or parliament, and a system of laws that undermine women's freedom in the private sphere and insist on treating women as second-class citizens. Finally, at the level of policymaking, public policy literature has emphasized that no public policy can be understood without analyzing and understanding the political and social contexts in which these policies are produced. It is undeniable that the space for pluralism during the last decade has slowly narrowed. The campaign, however, with its rights-based demands for justice, equality, and fairness, was able to create unprecedented communal solidarity outside of any political mobilization. The campaign proved that even within limited pluralistic systems and spaces, it is possible to develop tools for action and influence policy.
The views represented in this paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Arab Reform Initiative, its staff, or its board.
