The Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill targets both those few sharia tribunals that were set up under the 1996 Arbitration Act, and the much more numerous and informal sharia councils (misleadingly called ‘courts’) of which there are about 85, without mentioning Islam.
Balchin told Lapido: ‘In my work with Muslim women, like many others I have anecdotal evidence of gender discriminatory arbitration being conducted under the 1996 Arbitration Act, including in family matters which ought to be beyond any arbitration tribunal’s jurisdiction.’
Balchin, a convert to Islam, is the editorial coordinator of the highly acclaimed survey Knowing our Rights: Women, Family, Laws and Customs in the Muslim World, a publication of Women Living Under Muslim Laws and a member of the International Advisory Group for Musawah. She has long claimed that Muslim women in Britain suffered from fewer rights than in many Muslim countries. [Lapido Media] Read more
