Unilateral child conversions un-Islamic, says women’s group

Malay Mail
by IDA LIM

PUTRAJAYA, July 24 — Muslim converts who unilaterally change their children’s religion were defying Islam’s ideals of justice, a women’s group said today.

 

Ratna Osman, Sisters in Islam (SIS) executive director, said her advocacy group acknowledges the right to religious freedom, but pointed out that such opaque acts by Muslim converts did not show the “kindness” of Islam.

“Where is the transparency when a father or any parent who has converted to Islam wants to convert their children without the knowledge and consent of the unconverted spouse?

“There is no justice here if you are doing it behind somebody’s back, it’s as if you are cheating your way,” Ratna told reporters here after attending a court matter on interfaith child custody disputes as an observer.

Stressing that Islam is about “upholding justice” instead, Ratna added that it was wrong to cause pain and “hurt” to the non-Muslim spouse through such unilateral religious conversions.

“This is wrong, this is not an Islamic practice,” she said.

Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO)’s executive director Ivy Josiah, who was also present, similarly said her group upholds the right of any individuals to embrace the religion of their choosing, but said that spouses who later on convert to Islam still need to fulfill their family obligations.

She added that Islamic authorities owed a duty to serve as “gatekeepers” in such instances to protect the interests of the non-Muslim spouse and children.

“They can’t blindly say ‘welcome into our fold, let’s not bother about the wife, about the children, about the rights of the children’,” she told reporters here.

Insisting that unilateral child conversions be prohibited, she said the Cabinet had in 2009 decided that children should remain in the religion they were born into.

Although the proposed law amendments in 2009 to stop unilateral child conversions were shelved, Ivy said the women groups will continue to engage with the Attorney-General and the government, pointing out that they were merely asking the Cabinet to uphold its “promise” in 2009.

According to Ivy, existing laws such as the Guardianship of Infants Act provides for equal guardianship rights for both parents, while Article 8 of the Federal Constitution bars discrimination based on gender.

She also blamed Islamic authorities’ indiscriminate approval of unilateral child conversions for the clash between the country’s civil and shariah court systems.

“We won’t be here at this particular stage talking about who should have custody if in the first place, they don’t allow the conversions,” she later told The Malay Mail Online.

She was referring in particular to two high-profile cases where Hindu mothers, Deepa Subramaniam and Indira Gandhi, saw their estranged husbands convert to Islam and unilaterally making their children Muslims without their knowledge.

“Both these mothers have to really jump through many hurdles to claim their rights to have a say when it comes to conversion of their children,” she said, commending them for their “resilience” and “passion” in getting back their children.

In both cases, the Muslim spouses subsequently secured Shariah court orders granting them custody of the children, in direct conflict with civil court orders in favour of the Hindu mothers.

Both men also continue to defy the civil court orders to return the children to their mothers.

The police are also declining to execute the civil court orders in both cases, claiming they were subordinate to both the conflicting court systems.

The controversies in these two cases later prompted the Attorney-General’s Chambers and Inspector-General of Police to apply to intervene and for a stay of preceding court orders until the matter is disposed of in the Court of Appeal.