Lebanon

Lebanon’s patriarchal religious courts fail each day to promote and protect the best interests of children. Fathers are given the upper hand in child custody cases, regardless of what is best for the child. Important changes, at both the international and local levels, should be applied to ensure the well-being Lebanese children.

To have a better understanding, it is important to note these key points:

1. Lebanon does not have a unified civil law. This means that all laws related to marriage, divorce and family are decided by religious courts. There is no such thing as civil marriage. There are 18 different religious sects in Lebanon (12 Christian, 4 Muslim, 1 Druze, and 1 Jewish), all of which have different family laws. Nevertheless, most of the decisions taken by the religious courts in case of divorce tend to favor the fathers over the mothers and children. The father would get custody of the children after a certain age determined by the courts regardless.

2. Lebanon does not recognize international parental child abduction as a crime, and has not signed the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction which is the main international agreement that covers international parental child abduction. The Convention provides a process through which a parent can seek to have their child returned to their home country.

3. Lebanon has ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which is a legally binding document to protect and ensure that the rights of all children are respected. Article 3 of the CRC states that the best interest of the child should be taken as the primary consideration. Article 23 states that a child shall not be separated from his or her parents against their will. Lebanon should ensure complete compliance with this Convention, including the above two articles. Clearly, the country’s current family laws fail to do that.

The Lebanese Constitution allows the 18 different religious communities in Lebanon to make their own decisions regarding family law. Today 15 separate family laws are in force in Lebanon and are administered by separate religious courts.

Civil marriage is not available in the country, but it can be recognized if the marriage took place abroad. In that case, issues and disputes relating to the family are brought before a civil court where a judge will apply the law of the country where the civil marriage took place. If a couple has had both civil and religious wedding ceremonies, religious law is followed. Furthermore, if both spouses are Shia, Sunni, or Druze, their foreign civil marriage will not be recognized in Lebanon. Shia, Sunni, and Druze courts will apply their own rules in these instances.

Family laws differ depending on the religious sects, except for some Christian sects that have the same laws. Nonetheless, when it comes to custody laws, regardless of the sect, the father seems to have an advantage.

1. For Sunni Muslims, the mother has physical custody of her children until they are 12 years old, and then they are to be in the physical custody of their fathers.
2. For Shia Muslims, the mother’s physical custody generally ends for boys at age 2 and for girls at age 7.
3. For Druze, the mother’s physical custody generally ends for boys at age 12 and for girls at age 14.
4. For Christian Orthodox, mothers have custody of their daughters until the age of 15 and for sons until the age of 14.
5. For Protestants, mothers have custody of their daughters until the age of 12 and of sons until the age of 13.
6. The Catholic Personal Status law does not state a specific age but provides that mothers may nurse their babies until they are 2 years old.
7. Maronite Christians are not allowed to divorce but in case of a separation, the fathers have ultimate legal and spiritual guardianship over their children while mothers are recognized as caregivers.

If the parents are from two different religious sects, family legal decisions will be decided by the religious court of the father’s sect.

Alongside the concept of custody, religious courts recognize the concept of “guardianship,” which entails the preservation and upbringing of children and their assets until they reach adulthood. Across religious laws except for the Armenian-Orthodox personal status law, the right of guardianship both during marriage and after is granted to the father who is recognized as the peremptory moral and financial guardian of his children.

This means that even if mothers have physical custody of their children, only fathers (and their close male relatives in the case of his death) have legal authority over the children. Only fathers are able to perform basic legal or bureaucratic tasks for the children. Mothers cannot get their children government IDs, open bank accounts for them, and sometimes even register them at school. Children cannot travel with their children unless the father, even a divorced father, provides permission.