Enforcing Rights and Correcting Wrongs - Asia-Pacific Regional ...

provide supporting evidence – a tremendous burden for
anyone, and more so for poor and rural women. Divorce
laws that are gender-neutral may fail to take into account
the unequal gendered circumstances.
Women face difficulties in obtaining custody of their
children during divorce proceedings in the region. Most
courts follow the principle of acting in the “best interests
of the child”. While this is a valid approach, courts
frequently interpret it in terms of financial advantage.
This places women at a disadvantage because they have
5. Barriers of Access
less education and access to jobs and assets, or may have
been economically dependent on the men they want to
divorce. 105
These barriers are compounded by unfair distribution
of marital property and limited capacity to enforce
maintenance awards, which are often inadequate to
begin with. Their share in marital assets is often linked
to women’s measurable financial contribution to family
resources. The long hours of unpaid household work,
care work, work in the informal economy and enabling
Table 2. Divorce Allowed only on Specified Grounds: Examples of Five Asian Countries
Country Relevant Law Grounds for Divorce
Indonesia The Law on Marriage 1974 Adultery; addiction to alcohol or narcotics; gambling or other
vice that is hard to cure; abandonment for two continuous years;
imprisonment for five years; physical disability that prevent from
performinghis conjugalduties;actsofcrueltyandconstantdisputes
with the spouse.
Pakistan The Dissolution of Muslim
Marriages Act 1939
Philippines The Family Code of the
Philippines 1987
Sri Lanka The Marriage Registration
Ordinance 1908
Viet Nam The Marriage and Family
Law, 2000
Source: Cheema 2010.
whereabouts of the husband have not been known for a period of
four years; husband has neglected or has failed to provide for her
maintenance for a period of two years; husband has been sentenced
toimprisonmentforaperiodofsevenyearsorupwards;husbandhas
failed to perform, without reasonable cause, his marital obligations
for a period of three years; husband has been insane for a period of
two years or is suffering from leprosy or a virulent venereal disease;
husband treats her with cruelty;
Repeated physical violence or grossly abusive conduct directed
against the petitioner, a common child, or a child of the petitioner;
physical violence or moral pressure to compel the petitioner to
change religious or political affiliation; attempt of respondent
to corrupt or induce the petitioner, a common child, or a child
of the petitioner, to engage in prostitution, or connivance
in such corruption or inducement; final judgment sentencing
the respondent to imprisonment of more than six years, even if
pardoned; drug addiction or habitual alcoholism of the respondent;
homosexuality of the respondent; contracting by the respondent
of a subsequent bigamous marriage, whether in the Philippines or
abroad; sexual infidelity or perversion; abandonment of petitioner
by respondent without justifiable cause for more than one year.
Adultery; malicious desertion; incurable impotence at the time of
marriage.
Couple can no longer live together; marriage purposes cannot be
achieved; spouse of the person has been declared missing.
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