Divorced woman finally gets her day in court

By MIRIAM BULWAR DAVID-HAY (TRANSLATED)
The Haifa Court for Family Matters has ordered an elderly Muslim man to pay his ex-wife NIS 250,000 in compensation after he divorced her after 44 years of marriage, reports www.local.co.il. The couple, who are now both in their 70s, were divorced seven years ago through the local Muslim religious tribunal, which does not require a woman's agreement to a divorce and does not oblige men to pay any compensation. According to the report, the couple had three children and had been married for more than four decades when the husband decided he wanted a divorce. The local Muslim religious tribunal granted his request, and the woman was evicted from the family home. She sued her ex-husband for compensation in the Haifa Court for Family Matters, where a judge has now ruled in her favor. "We live in different times and it is not possible that a woman who has lived with her husband for a long period of 44 years and has given birth to his children should be thrown into the street this way without anything," the judge said. The report said hundreds of Arab women were divorced by their husbands every year and were unaware that although a Muslim religious tribunal might not force the men to pay any compensation, the women had the right to sue their ex-husbands through the civil courts.