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Sudanese Women Welcome Freedom to Travel Abroad with Children

Naba Mohiedeen

   KHARTOUM - Sudan's transitional government amended a law last week to
   allow women to travel abroad with their children without the father's
   permission-- a move welcomed by women's rights groups.

   Thirty-year-olddivorced motherManya Hamid recalls how her ex-husband
   continued to torment her using Sudan's laws even after their marriage
   ended.

   In 2015, she wanted to take her one-year-old daughter to meet her
   grandfather, who was living in the United States, and dying of cancer.
   But under Sudan's Muslim Personal Law Act of 1991, only the father
   could decide if his child was allowed to travel abroad, even if he was
   a former husband.

   Hamid's former husband would not allow it and, fearing that he might
   disappear with the child. She stayed in Sudan.

   Her father died in 2017.

   But last week, Sudan's transitional government amended several laws on
   personal freedom, allowing women to travel abroad with their children
   without the father's permission.

   Hamid says when she heard the new amendments regarding the personal law
   act, she cried a lot, remembering all of her divorce. She congratulates
   all Sudanese mothers who suffered and couldn't travel freely.

   Under the 1991 law, women in Sudan also required the consent of their
   husband or a male guardian to travel outside the country.

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