Migrant Women Caught between Islamic Family Law and Women's Rights. The Search for the Appropriate ‘Connecting Factor’ in International Family Law

Abstract

In recent decades ‘conflicts justice’ in the realm of international family law has undoubtedly gained momentum in most European immigration countries. This is largely due to an increase in the number of cases relating to family disputes among migrants submitted to the courts. In the first part of this contribution (§ 2: ‘The legal techniques at hand. The dramatic lack of adaptation of century-old techniques’) I briefly describe how ‘conflicts justice,’ in the domain of cross-cultural family relations, is facing the impact of an unprecedented cross-boundary mobility of people from all over the world. This cross-border mobility has engendered a new type of social and cultural pluralism in most European host countries. In the second part (§ 3: ‘The case of Moroccan women claiming protection under Belgian secular law’) I illustrate the discussion on possible legal solutions for handling the ‘conflicts justice’ consequence of this cross-border mobility by referring to the very problematic position of Moroccan women who have immigrated to Belgium.