This is the fourth year that Sisters in Islam (SIS) is releasing the annual Telenisa Statistics gathered from the data of the Telenisa Legal Clinic that SIS has been operating since 2003.

We are proud to inform that we have an increase of 6% more clients reaching out to us in 2019 as compared to 2018 and that there are also interesting observations to be made in terms of the issues that women and men face on the ground when it comes to accessing their rights and those of their children under the Islamic Family Law compared to previous years.

Child maintenance continues to be one of the top-most issues of concern. The percentages for this issue since 2016 have remained more or less the same – between 31% to 33%. Related to this, fathers are either not paying adequate maintenance or aren’t able to pay at all due to unemployment.

One of the issues raised for women’s knowledge, information and discussion is the provision, for example, under Section 73 (2) of the Selangor Islamic Family Law Enactment where the court may order any “person liable under Hukum Syarak” (grandfather, uncles or successors on the father’s side) in the matter of Islamic law to pay maintenance to his children if the father is unable to. It is a provision less known to women or perhaps in the past, the effectiveness of this provision remains to be desired – nevertheless, it is there.

In the years to come, to what extent would such provisions remain relevant when state agencies and mechanisms hold the key in ensuring and assuring that children would get the maintenance that is rightly theirs? Perhaps a more encompassing way forward is for the establishment of a Federal Child Support Agency to guarantee that all children will get their maintenance timely and without further procedural or bureaucratic fuss that mothers would normally have to go through under the present existing systems. In the past, this was an option that was being explored with various study visits to countries that have been implementing this for many years and perhaps, the time has come for the relevant ministries and agencies in Malaysia to take this up seriously and make that leap forward and clearly demonstrate the nation’s commitment to the lives and futures of children in Malaysia and what is rightly theirs to begin with.

For this publication, even though it is focused on 2019 for the statistical data, we have also included some updates that are relevant that have occurred in early 2020, for contextual purposes to the analysis and discussion on some of the issues.

Sisters in Islam would like to extend our gratitude to the many individuals and institutions that have been supporting our work on Telenisa. We would like to thank Yayasan Sime Darby for their generous contribution in supporting the Telenisa Legal Clinic from September 2019 onwards to 2022.

We would also like to acknowledge the Legal Aid Centres of Kuala Lumpur and Selangor for collaborating with Sisters in Islam and other NGOs since 2003, giving us the opportunity to engage with chambering students to the work on Islamic Family Law.

The publication and launch of the Telenisa Statistics 2019 would not have been possible without the support of Friedrich Naumann Foundation, who have collaborated with Sisters in Islam on various projects since 1993.

Finally, we would like to thank all our clients for coming to us and entrusting us to help them when they need it. It is our wish that such services would no longer be required one day, when equality and justice for women in the family becomes a reality for all.

Rozana Isa is an Executive Director of Sisters in Islam.

Click here to subscribe to our weekly newsletters in English and or French. You will receive one email every Monday containing links to all articles published in the last 7 days.