An Islamic human rights advocacy group, the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) has called on the Federal Government for a reform of Nigerian marriage laws that will allow married women to bear their fathers’ names.
The call was contained in a statement signed by the group’s director, Professor Ishaq Akintola, on Monday.
MURIC described the current practice whereby married women are forced to bear their husbands’ surnames as gender discriminatory, archaic and oppressive.
The group also condemned the current practice for depriving women of their Allah-given fundamental human right to personal and parental identity in marriage.
The statement read in part, “Our attention has been drawn to the plight of married Muslim women who are being disallowed by employers from bearing their fathers’ names. This amounts to forceful enslavement, denial of Allah-given fundamental human right to parental identity and wrongful dismissal of loco parentis.
“We condemn the current practice for three major reasons, namely, for generating confusion in the society, for creating a monumental identity crisis among married women and for depriving women of their Allah-given fundamental human right to personal as well as parental identity in marriage.
“Instead of this, we advocate the adoption of the women-friendly Islamic practice which allows married women to bear their fathers’ surnames after marriage.
“No woman dropped suddenly from the sky and even if some appear out of nowhere, they must have been born, bred, nurtured, buttered and marmaladed by certain parents before they grew up and matured into womanhood. Their education was also sponsored by their parents at a time that the future husband probably knew nothing about them and spent no kobo on their upbringing and their education.
“It therefore beats logic, fairness and natural justice that a husband appears out of nowhere to commandeer a woman’s parental identity simply by marrying her.”
