More than a century after Egypt’s first personal status legislation, rights advocates are calling for a modern law that reflects rapidly changing social and economic conditions. Despite repeated announcements of proposed amendments, the issue remains unresolved as one parliament’s term ends and a newly elected chamber prepares to convene. Observers describe the government’s lack of transparency as evidence of political priorities and an intentionally postponed confrontation with society.
In a statement issued at the end of December 2025, the Centre for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assistance (CEWLA) campaign “Open the Doors of Justice” called for an end to the stalemate. It argued that the existing legislation manages family conflict rather than protecting families, leaves children hostage to lengthy court disputes and institutionalises inequality and different forms of violence at home and in court.
The legal framework developed over more than a century: Law No. 25 of 1920 began codifying family matters, marriage, maintenance and custody; Law No. 25 of 1929 expanded divorce and maintenance provisions; Law No. 77 of 1943 addressed inheritance; Law No. 119 of 1952 regulated guardianship over property; and Law No. 100 of 1985 amended personal status provisions. Egypt’s constitutions, from 1971 to the 2014 Constitution amended in 2019, also addressed equality between women and men and protection of the family.
In January 2025, nearly three years after the drafting committee was formed, its chairman, Judge Abdel Rahman Mohamed, announced that all articles of a new bill were complete. It was divided into three parts: personal guardianship, guardianship over property, and procedures governing personal status matters.
Nevertheless, the bill was not submitted to the parliament whose constitutional term expired. Its legislative process was not prioritised, leaving it for the incoming chamber despite repeated demands for legislation that ensures justice and equality for all family members, particularly women and children.
Towards a fairer family law
According to CEWLA’s campaign, women bear the greatest cost of delay: years lost in litigation, increasing economic insecurity and legal coercion justified in the name of preserving the family. Alternative drafts are already available, notably CEWLA’s “A More Just Family Law” proposal. Yet the presidential instruction in June 2022 to prepare a new law within four months has not produced enacted reform.
CEWLA’s proposed bill includes major changes. It would allow a mother who has been raped to establish her child’s paternity and require divorce to take place through a court rather than by unilateral declaration. It also provides compensation to a wife on divorce to limit economic harm.
The proposal would give a non-custodial parent regular opportunities to host the child while safeguarding the child’s best interests. Marriage contracts would include additional conditions agreed by both parties, including arrangements for financial partnership and division of wealth following divorce.
On custody, it places the mother first and the father second, allowing a mother to retain custody after remarriage. This would include a Christian mother married to a Muslim man on the same basis as a Muslim mother. The proposal regulates rather than prohibits polygamy and categorically prohibits marriage of underage girls. These provisions are proposals, not a description of enacted rules.
CEWLA executive director Seham Ali says the delay cannot be separated from Egypt’s legislative priorities. Women’s and family issues receive less attention than investment or tax laws, she argues, as has also happened with the proposed unified law against violence against women.
Despite the president’s 2022 call for a fairer personal status law and instructions for a Justice Ministry committee to finish a draft within four months, she says “almost four years have passed without any results being announced or a bill being put forward for public discussion.” She hopes legislators will seriously debate the proposals.
Ali describes reform as urgent. The current framework is rooted in the 1920s and has received piecemeal rather than fundamental amendments. Social, economic and cultural conditions, gender roles and children’s needs have changed, while the legal framework has failed to keep pace. She rejects a rigid identification of existing rules with Islamic law, arguing that Islamic jurisprudence itself is more developed and flexible than many current provisions.
Although the law gives women grounds to seek judicial divorce, she says its evidentiary requirements can be almost impossible to meet. “For example, in cases of beating, abandonment or even problems in intimate relations, women are asked for witnesses, which is unrealistic. Without being able to prove the case, many must remain in violent relationships, because khulʿ means giving up financial rights—an option many cannot afford.” Khulʿ is a form of divorce initiated by a wife with financial concessions.
The issue is not “a law for women only,” Ali stresses. She says the existing custody order can place fathers twelfth or fourteenth, after distant female relatives, while three-hour visits in public places do not allow a genuine relationship with the non-custodial parent. Enforcement is another problem: maintenance and housing judgments are often ineffective, husbands may conceal income or dispose of the family home, and rights that exist on paper remain difficult to secure.
A framework more than a century old cannot meet the needs of a changing Egyptian family, she argues. Keeping it in place ignores social and economic realities and unjustifiably delays family justice.
Why has the amended law not been enacted?
In June 2022, then justice minister Omar Marwan formed a judicial and legal committee specialising in family courts and cases to prepare the bill under the president’s instructions.
The committee was initially expected to finish the draft by 5 October 2022, but the deadline was extended. In January 2025, its chairman announced a completed bill of 355 articles: 175 on personal guardianship, 89 on property guardianship and 91 on procedures and implementation. He also described 60 provisions shared by Muslims and Christians concerning procedural and organisational matters such as visits, hosting and maintenance, without altering religious rules. The proposal would amend marriage contracts for both faiths and was submitted to the Justice Ministry.
The Arabic report also refers to an announcement at an Egyptian Women’s Day ceremony that the ministry had received the amendments and was adjusting the final legal wording, alongside a separate 13-article bill for an Egyptian Family Care Fund. Its cited report is dated 20 March 2023, although the Arabic text labels the announcement 2025; the two dates should not be treated as interchangeable.
The independent Egyptian Human and the City for Social Research institution published a paper on the dilemmas of personal status law. It argues that the announced proposals address guardianship, divorce, visits, maintenance and Christian personal status laws, but omit crucial issues such as safe housing for women and children and domestic violence legislation.
According to the paper, judicial experience shows that a constitutional ruling removing a provision requiring a husband to provide a home for a divorced custodial mother weakened protection for her and her children. Mothers are left with temporary housing allowances and often must bring separate cases to secure access to accommodation. Some husbands refuse court orders, sometimes even destroying the home.
The paper says safe housing is further constrained by only eight shelters in eight of Egypt’s 27 governorates. It describes strict conditions, including proof of violence, marriage or divorce documents, and accommodation fees tied to income. Boys over 12 cannot stay with their mothers, making it harder to secure safety after divorce and sometimes leaving women in abusive relationships without a safe alternative.
It cites UN and Promundo material reporting varying levels of acceptance of wife-beating among men, ranging from 53.4 to 90 percent in the cited measures. These figures refer to the paper’s different reported measures and should not be read as a single national prevalence estimate. The paper argues that tolerance of purported “disciplinary beating,” and husbands’ ability to bring or withdraw adultery cases, can enable coercion.
The paper also cites figures stating that wives brought about 89.5 percent of domestic violence cases against husbands, and that 1,195 crimes of violence against girls and women were recorded in 2024. It sees these indicators as evidence of an urgent need for protection.
It concludes that personal status provisions contain gaps preventing full gender equality, limiting women’s legal and social rights and reinforcing dependence on men.
To secure equal rights and responsibilities, it calls for comprehensive protection for women and children and a review of personal status laws for all citizens regardless of religion, based on citizenship and constitutional equality. It argues that constitutional review belongs to the Supreme Constitutional Court without intervention by religious institutions, while recognising other faiths and communities and allowing a unified civil framework that respects freedom of belief and Egypt’s diversity.
A confrontation postponed
Aya Mounir, executive director of the Superwoman initiative, says reform does not appear to be a state priority: the outgoing parliament finished its term without prioritising it.
Proposals discussed by the National Council for Women and reflected in Al Azhar’s plans included ending oral and absentee divorce and amending maintenance rules, she says. But such changes are often partial, while the state tries to balance an image of civil government, public approval and a particular religious discourse.
Mounir argues that the existing rules also impose economic costs on the state. Women disadvantaged in inheritance, education or work become dependent on public support such as Hayah Karima. Employment, education, training and fair maintenance could address that insecurity and protect children, rather than relying on imprisonment when husbands cannot pay.
Divorce and maintenance litigation can take a year and a half, with multiple cases against the same husband increasing the burden and allowing some men to exploit proceedings, she says. Judicial discretion without clear protections can expose women to injustice and domestic violence.
Feminist activist Elham Eidarous, a founding representative of the Bread and Freedom Party, which is still under formation, agrees that social issues and personal status reform are not state priorities.
She says the state is reluctant to accept financial or administrative obligations arising from comprehensive reform. Expected amendments often address men’s demands concerning visits and custody while leaving guardianship and women’s economic rights without fundamental change.
Women must be treated in terms of their rights and dignity, not solely particular grievances raised by men, she argues. Some proposed custody changes favour fathers at mothers’ expense and may even conflict with the religious principles used to justify them.
Eidarous says shelter arrangements for women and children are inadequate, with no clear state responsibility for protection or follow-up. Lengthy and complex litigation obstructs women’s material and family rights; leaving maintenance and guardianship to judicial discretion without clear safeguards reinforces inequality and vulnerability.
Amr Mohamed, a lawyer and rights advocate at Tadwein for Gender Studies, sees the delay as a confrontation the state is avoiding with religious institutions that officially oversee personal status rules. He argues that those institutions tend to preserve established provisions rather than adapt them to contemporary conditions.
He says a framework originating in 1920 no longer fits modern social and economic life. Delaying a unified law against violence against women, submitted to parliament more than three years earlier, likewise reflects fear of confronting society and religious institutions despite rising violence.
Violence and the cost of delayed justice
Rights experts argue that complicated court procedures and gaps relating to divorce, property guardianship and maintenance contribute to psychological and economic domestic violence.
Mounir says comprehensive reform, simpler litigation, fair maintenance and economic opportunities for women would be essential steps towards reducing domestic violence and protecting women and children socially and legally.
Eidarous cautions that violence cannot be explained by laws alone; economic pressures and prevailing cultural and social attitudes also matter. A caring father does not become violent simply because of visits or maintenance, she says. Aggression or rejection of women’s departure from traditional expectations can underlie violence. Better rights and simpler procedures may reduce disputes without addressing every social or cultural cause.
Mohamed says delay intensifies women’s economic and social pressures and turns litigation into a lengthy ordeal. He advocates a “single-window” approach in which one family case covers all entitlements, rather than forcing women through multiple proceedings over years to obtain judgments they may be unable to enforce. He describes that as economic violence.
He cites maintenance cases in which women resort to Nasser Social Bank but often receive no more than EGP 500 a month, far below living costs. He says some custodial judgments are not enforced and defendants may leave the country without serving sentences related to unpaid maintenance.
Advocates say existing rules cannot keep pace with social, economic and cultural change while alternative bills remain stalled. Comprehensive reform, simpler court procedures and effective economic and legal protection are central to reducing conflict and securing justice. The file tests the state’s willingness to balance its legal obligations and citizens’ rights with social and religious pressures—a test requiring serious legislative and political commitment.
