Najiba Haidari Interview
Text of the interview with Najeeba Haidari the in charge of the pleading for justice department of Women Support Organization or Midika Afghanistan regarding the significance of marriage registration.
Thanks Miss.Najeeba Haidary the in charge of the justice department of the Women Support Organization Midika Afghanistan.
Question:Marriage is an Islamic, legal and social order, in your point of view what is the significance and advantage of marriage registration for the families?
Najiba Haidari:Thanks for your question, before I reply your question I would like to say that the marriage certificates were also being registered in governmental offices previously too, when the contract is tied it has common law and legal shape when we assess the common law shape it is common among the people as the mullahs or judges who contract the marriage use a simple sheet of paper they get the thumb of witness and couple after writing the name of the bride and bridegroom , this paper is called common law marriage certificate.
The other type of marriage certificate is official marriage certificate and I want to insist on one point that legal marriage certificates are those which are issued from courts and the couples who want to register their marriage certificates uses this certificates. I want to explain the significance of the marriage, we know that contract of marriage has special importance like other contracts. For example if God forbidden, some of families faces with problems in future, they can find solution ways to their problems by processing legal phases through these certificates of marriage which are registered with governmental offices. Some problems relates to husbands as they negates the right of heritage, or dowry of their wives or they negates provision of the alimony for their wives or offspring, registration of the certificates of marriage can prevent emerge of these cases. Also some issues relates to the wife, for example when the marriage takes place they don’t know in advance what is the marital status of two sides, is the woman divorced, widowed or virgin and the same way how many times the husband has married, if we consider all these benefits, we would know that registration of marriage certificates has much importance specially families.
2.Now less marriage certificates have been registered with governmental institutions, by your point of view what is the reason for this, less awareness of the people, being customary the community or nonexistence of the places of reference for registration?
Well, it is much to be regretted that the certificates of marriages are not registered.
The people register the marriages when necessities happens to the for example if they occupy any job and the certificate of marriages is asked or when they are going on the trip they register their marriages. We can say that there are different reasons for not registering the marriages. Not having awareness about the benefits of marriage registration. In some places being customary of the community is dominant as some people want to register their marriages but they feel shame to take the wife and register the marriage, thought there is no lack of centers of marriage registration, if the people want the marriage registration they can go easily to courts and register the marriages.
3.So what is the solution way, in some countries marriage registration is compulsory and disobedience of it followed by punishment such as being jailed or cash fine, taking into consideration the family acute problems and some of these problems are supposed to be resulted from not registration of marriages, what do you think can making compulsory the marriage registration be a solution way?
In order to prevent the violations in families, making compulsory the marriage registration is a good idea, civil institutions including Women Support Organization or Midika Afghanistan are partial to this idea but before making compulsory marriage’s registration we want to work on public awareness giving so I think it is better first that the people know about the advantages of registration and be encouraged for registration the marriage rather than making compulsory the registration immediately because when the laws come into existence without awareness to people and the people don’t know about their advantages, the laws cannot find its places among the people due to this we want that the ground work be prepared, the people be encouraged and informed about the benefits of it then we will suggest the making compulsory the marriages’ registration.
4.So you see two solution ways, first raising the public awareness regarding the advantages of marriages’ registration and also registration should get convinced aspect.
Yes I agree with this and I believe that most of the people will accept this method.
5.The compulsory and the pre time marriages of the girls are the serious social problems in Afghanistan, it is said that by marriage registration the compulsory and pre time marriages will be prevented and the family problems can be solved through legal channels, looking at to this fact that it is said that most of the family problems are solved by customary channels?
I agree with you, as we all know the custom is dominant in our community rather than the dominance of law or dominance of Islamic Sharia, unfortunately there are some cases which most of them resulted to injustice between families as the decision sometime is in favor of the husband and sometime the decision is favor of wife, as you mentioned as well, the marriages’ registration will be a step toward prevention this type of cases. Most of the people may know and may have seen or studied the National Certificate of Marriage in which age of son and daughter and issues related to alimony and dowry has been mentioned and all articles of the civil law related to formation the family from the start up to end and commitment of the government on the support and implementation of their rights have been detailed which can help the wife and husband. At the end of the of the marriage certificate, the satisfaction of wife and husband is a condition which can help the families to solve legally their arisen problems through reference to courts rather than by Jarga (a council of people for solving issues).
6.How are the phases of the marriage registration, the people who want to register their marriages how they can process this ?
The phases of marriage registration are not so long as the people think and fear that it will be time consuming. If they want to get the certificate of marriage before marriage and then register it, they can submit their petition letters to “bonds registrations courts” in the related districts, the judge of the court assesses the petition letter and sends it to the clerk of the court. The clerk provide them a form of marriage registration to them .They fill the form and the form is approved by the representative of the district , and they take again this form along with two pieces of photos to the court, the judges assess the form and send back to the clerk of the court, he provides them the certificate of the marriage. They can proceed on the marriage out of the court and can register the marriage. If some of the citizens want to marry in the court they can do their marriage in the attendance of two witnesses, when the judge hear the testimony of the witnesses he can tie the contract of the couple and gives them the certificate of the marriage it is mentionable that the certificate of marriage is provided into three copies one of the copies is kept in the court and two more copies belongs to the couple.
7.Dont you think that the process is very lengthy, one of the reason of turning away the faces of people from judicial institutions of Afghanistan in the complicity of the working procedure in the governmental offices, and the people have to refer to customary channels for the solving their cases?
As I told the procedure is not so long whatever relates to government is simple, it requires two or three times going to the court. As soon as the applicant fill its form and follow the registration procedure the marriages registration will be finished it will not be time consuming.
8. Now there are required facilities for marriage registration especially in remote areas and provinces, if the people show their interest to registration of the marriage, will the related institutions be able to accomplish marriage registration?
In this part I would like to say that since we have started the work on awareness about the importance of marriage registration, the civil institutions along with governmental organs such as high court ministry of women affairs has promised to help in this regard. In order to the don’t face with problems the government provided new national marriage certifications and sent to the courts of the districts .Now it belongs to people how they register their marriages, if they don’t register their marriages it will not be known whether there are problems or not? Are there enough marriage certificates in the distribution centers or not? Based on the survey that we have conducted in the courts of Heart,Mazar and Kabul we found from interviews with judges, couples, who had come for getting marriage registration that all sides were happy and many problems were not existence in this regard and we very happy about their satisfaction.
9. What is the role of the Women Support Organization or Midika Afghanistan?
Women Support Organization has accomplished valuable works in regarding the awareness about the advantages of the marriage registration. We have had different campaigns in this regard and through holding the workshops and trainings to different categories of the community. In first the judges got awareness. When the national marriage certificates were made ready we found out that the mullahs can have basic role in the marriage registration and explaining the benefits of marriage registration, because in most of the areas the mullahs are the people who contract the marriages, due to this we could to train the mullahs in the Mazar, and Heart provinces and in Farza, Char Asiab, Shakar Dara and other districts of Kabul and make them aware of the benefits of the marriage registration. We also used television and radios spots and posters to explain the advantages of the marriage registration. We have plan to simplify the process and decrease the price of from 300 Afghanis fixed by high court through consultation with civil communities.
10. What will be the consequences of not registration of the marriage for the families?
As I mentioned before when we want to make formal and legal the marriage in fact we can get guarantee that we would be able to prevent the problems that the families face with but in the case of not registration the marriage in governmental departments we would not have an authentic document of our marriage and we will be deprived of the advantages of marriage registration. Beside this some problems come into existence as some people present unjust lawsuits, for example a woman claims that that person was my husband or a man claims that that woman was my wife. There are instances of marriages such as pre-time marriage compulsory marriages, and bad giving marriages(Bad giving marriage is common in Afghani society for the resolution the some differences between families) which we can prevent but in the case of not registration the mentioned instances will occur.
11. One of the effectiveness of the marriage registration is the enacting the condition in the marriage, what is advantage of enacting the condition?
Enacting the condition like in other contracts is legal from point view of the Islam and civil law also has explicitness in this regard and can be suggested by wife or husband and should not be in contrast with the marriage. Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him) orders that “Conditions are those through which the wife and husband can be legal to each other” also the morals of companions of Prophet Mohammad (peace upon him) also explicitness in this regard. Regarding the condition on the marriage I should say that suggested conditions are required as the conditions are recorded in national marriage certificate which is a guarantee in related institutions that both sides can use them, on the other hand if one side either wife or husband breach the conditions and the injured side is kept deprived from the implementation of the conditions then he can appeal to the court by showing the marriage certificate and solve the problem.
12.As you explained, due to different reasons less people are ready to register their marriages in governmental offices, this has caused that married people has not registered their marriages, what do you think is it possible for married people that they register their marriages, if yes what is the procedure for them?
Yes it is possible, this facility is existent for married people even for those who have the children. They will pass the required procedure. If they have the marriage certificate they can show and can be registered if they don’t have the marriage certificate they also can appeal to the court but they will get certificate of matrimony which has the same validity as marriage certificate, generally the marriage certificate is given to the couple who want to marry newly.
13.How many legal marriages have been performed in Afghanistan and what is the difference between the legal and illegal marriages?
When assess the legal marriages we see that not only in some cities but in whole Afghanistan the number legal marriages is less than illegal marriages, the illegal marriages are the marriages such as compulsory marriages which are performed without satisfaction of the boy and girl ; pre time marriages in which the boy or girl are not in the marriage age which is 16 years for the girl and 18 years for the boy the marriage in low age is permissible in exceptional cases; marriage without the witness; marriage with legal intimates; coercing the widow for marriages, bad giving marriage ( It is common in Afghani community due to which a daughter is given for marriage from one side to other side to solve the existent problem); money marriage in which payment of the money is the base of marriage.
In legal marriages the satisfaction of the boy and daughter is condition, the witnesses are present, the dowry is paid, the age of the boy and girl is according to is legal age of marriage, the mentioned marriages are legal marriages which are less in number comparing to illegal marriages.
14.What is your expectation from the people and request from the people after taking into consideration the effectiveness and benefits of the marriages registration?
We can take our step toward legality in the community by marriage registration. There are laws but without implementation so marriage registration can be a positive step taken by families in implementation of the law. We also can repel all the violations that families are faced with or bring down the figures of violations, my request from the people is this to use the facilities that have been prepared by the government or civil institutions to have tranquil life. In this regard I would like to request the citizen especially the couple who want to marry or they are fiancé, married families to use the prepared facilities for the marriage registration which are useful for them in travel, occupying the job and has many other benefits.
Thanks Miss Najiba the head of Justice department of Women Support Organization Midika Afghnistan.
Thanks you too.
