Picture taken from TheStar.com.myDivorce, child support and alimony are the 3 most reasons why couple go back and forth in the court. Being a Muslim in a muslim country such as Malaysia, all things related to the religion are handled by the Syariah Court. Islam is a fair religion and does not discriminate women. That, I truly believe. Unfortunately, most (not all but most, ok?) of the people running these religious agencies are nowhere close in being fair to women. Especially divorced women, be it with or without children.
I am sure that I am not alone in thinking this way. How many men that you know of personally, after they are divorced, actually pay child support voluntarily? And why should anybody have to go to court to get child support on the first place anyway? Are they not your children too? The ones getting divorced are you and your spouse. Not you and the children. How could anybody treat their own children that way? And yet they call themselves a muslim! If any of you readers fall into that category, I have this to say to you, "SHAME ON YOU!".
The scenario is of course different for non muslims especially in non muslim countries where it is the women who have the upper hands and they would use the children to get back to their exes by giving minimum or no access at all to the children. Again, not all and sometimes the situations are such that minimum or none at all are for the best interest of the children. (Think of abusive, drugs or alcohol addicts). But that is another story for another day.
Today it is all about the picture above of a woman who had gone to the syariah court to fight for the child support that the ex husband had conveniently failed to pay totalling to RM50,000 (USD14,500). Sounds like a normal case huh? Well, it should be except that instead of being angry that child support was not paid to her, the judge was angry at how she was dressed! This is what the judge said to her,
“You are not here for a photo shoot. Wearing a vest over a blouse makes it look as if you are going for war,” said Saarani (the judge), before telling Shafnie’s lawyer to advise her client on the dress code for appearing in a Syariah court.
What. The. Hell.
