She did not want to leave him, although the thought came to her very often, as she didn’t want to bring shame upon both families. She was so traumatized by the abuse that she thought she was loosing her sanity. As time went by, she became an introverted and disorientated person. Often she would pray to hear an apology from him for his behaviour, but none came. Not being able to stand the long silence between them, she would be the one apologizing for her actions.

 

Many a times, he had chased her out of their home but would not allow her go to her parent’s house. She thought if they had a baby, he would change his ways. However, throughout her pregnancy, she was abused. After delivery, their sex life changed. He claimed she was not attractive to him any more.

 

Realising her family life not improving despite having a son, she became very unhappy and had no reason to continue their six years of marriage. She decided to confide in her sister about her predicament. Shocked at what has been happening, her sister began to call numbers that she found in the papers and came upon WAO’s number. She gave it to Zakiah.

 

Finding a right time to leave was difficult, as the in-laws had moved in to ‘watch’ over her. When they were in prayer one day, she took the opportunity to gather a few of her things and ran out with her son. She made her way to the Jabatan Agama to state her reasons for leaving home and that her husband had claimed he would divorce her many times before. Then she came to WAO. She, very reluctantly, made a police report against him regarding the abuse as she still did not want to bring him shame.

 

Decision

With the support of her family, she managed to get a lawyer to le for divorce and custody of their son. This was in late July 2005. Since then she had gone to court more than six times. The process was long drawn and complicated.

 

Court System

The first appearance in court was a reconciliation meeting called ‘suluh’, or a mediation meeting between both parties. When there was no settlement, both had to hire lawyers to fight their case in court. To do this, she had to go again to court to have a ‘ceremony’ or ‘wakalah’ to appoint her lawyer upon which he was to get another date to x the “hearing date”. However, when the date came up, the case was postponed.

 

This was not the end, as the case of the divorce and of the custody were postponed several times; Reasons for this the judge was on emergency leave, court had a ceremony for installation of new lawyers, the husband had denied he had uttered ‘talak’ and the judge had gone to perform his “haj”.

 

An Explanation

The Syariah court, works differently from civil courts where both divorce and custody are submitted in one application.

 

She had to open six files to hear her matters: They were 1) confirmation of the divorce, 2) application for temporary custody, 3) setting aside of the temporary custody obtained by the husband first, 4) application for permanent custody, 5) maintenance and 6) obtaining matrimonial property. Every time, she had a court hearing, queries or to submit documents, she had to pay the lawyer for appearing in court or the court office.

 

For six months she endured this and on her final hearing date, she managed to give testimony about her marriage. Her husband, however, was not present. Rightly, the judge went on with the case as it had been postponed too many times. Luck was on her side as his lawyer called for an out of court settlement. He proposed to give her custody of the son and a house to stay in so that she could send him to school and he was able visit him whenever possible.