Family law reform gains momentum across the Middle East and North Africa, but major barriers remain

Photo credit: Equality Now; Members of Hurra Coalition at the coalition’s annual meeting in Egypt, October 2026

The Hurra Coalition warns that progress in family law reform across the Middle East and North Africa remains fragile amid persistent discrimination and growing backlash. 

Hurghada, Egypt, November 6, 2026: Efforts to reform discriminatory family laws are gaining momentum across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), with countries reviewing existing laws, considering legislative proposals or adopting reforms to strengthen women’s rights in marriage, divorce, child custody and inheritance. However, significant barriers are hindering reform and threatening progress, warns the Hurra Coalition, a regional network of leading women’s rights organisations working to achieve equal rights for men and women in family laws across MENA.

Women’s and girls’ rights continue to be undermined by discriminatory and contradictory laws, weak implementation of legal protections, and courts that interpret and apply family laws inconsistently. Organised groups opposed to gender equality are using religious and cultural arguments and claims about upholding traditional “family values” to oppose reform of personal status laws governing family matters, justify discriminatory laws and challenge existing legal protections for women and girls.

Prominent women’s rights defenders and civil society leaders from the Hurra Coalition met in Hurghada, Egypt, in October 2026 to assess gains and setbacks in family law reform and identify priorities for strengthening women’s legal rights and protections.

Legislative momentum and progress in reform of family laws in MENA

The United Nations’ Gender Justice and the Law initiative tracks legislative progress in 17 countries in the Arab region, evaluating 73 indicators across six areas of law. In 2025, the initiative recorded the adoption and amendment of 32 legal texts in 12 countries that contributed to strengthening women’s legal status laws, including family and personal status. 

In Egypt, the government approved draft personal status legislation in April 2026 and referred two bills to Parliament in May, proposing reforms to family laws governing Muslims and Christians. The bills, which remain under parliamentary consideration, aim to consolidate and modernise existing legal frameworks, simplify legal procedures and strengthen protections relating to marriage, divorce, child custody, financial maintenance and other family matters.

In Morocco, a review of the Moudawana (Family Code), initiated by King Mohammed VI, led to the announcement of over 100 proposed amendments in December 2024. These include changes to child marriage exceptions, parental guardianship, custody, polygamy, inheritance, division of marital assets and recognition of women’s unpaid domestic work. The proposals have yet to be enacted and are being finalised before parliamentary consideration.

In Lebanon, civil society organisations and women’s rights advocates have put forward a draft unified civil personal status law, seeking to establish a common legal framework governing marriage, divorce, child custody, inheritance and other family matters. These issues are currently governed by 15 separate religious personal status systems, with different religious courts applying their own laws and procedures. This results in inconsistent legal protections and discriminatory treatment, particularly for women, whose rights in family matters can vary significantly depending on the religious laws governing their cases.

Safeguarding women’s legal rights requires sustained commitment 

During her keynote address at the Hurra meeting, Imen Zahouani Houimel, a gender expert and former Tunisian Minister of Women, Family and Seniors, emphasised that “legal reform is a cumulative process where each phase builds upon previous gains.” 

Reflecting on the 70th anniversary of Tunisia’s Code of Personal Status, adopted in 1956, she highlighted how the legislation marked a decisive break with traditional family structures by prohibiting polygamy, requiring consent of both spouses to marry, setting 18 as the minimum marriage age, and abolishing unilateral divorce by husbands in favour of court-supervised divorce, with both spouses entitled to seek it.

Another legislative milestone was Tunisia’s adoption of Organic Law No. 58 of 2017 on eliminating violence against women. The law recognises economic, political and psychological violence alongside physical and sexual violence, and abolished provisions that allowed perpetrators of certain sexual offences against minors to escape prosecution by marrying their victims.

Houimel said, “Political will has been decisive, but it must be sustained by strong institutions, effective implementation, and feminist and human rights advocacy”, warning that legal gains are not irreversible unless safeguarded by strong institutions, public awareness, and continuous mobilisation against waves of rights regression.

Discriminatory family laws put women’s rights and economic security at risk 

In much of the Arab world, family laws are spread across different religious, customary and civil legal systems, with provisions that sometimes overlap or contradict one another. This can create confusion and unequal treatment, as legal protections within a country may vary between women depending on what community they are in.

Other issues include exceptions to the minimum marriage age of 18 that permit child marriage, and complex bureaucratic procedures that make it difficult for women to secure financial support from their spouses. A lack of legal provisions ensuring a fair division of marital assets following divorce or the death of a husband increases women’s economic vulnerability. Inconsistent court rulings on child custody and guardianship are among the most critical, yet least addressed, areas needing reform.

Protecting women’s rights in MENA against backlash 

Women’s rights advocates warn about the growing backlash against gender equality. Beyond blocking family law reform, anti-rights movements are spreading misleading narratives, undermining institutions that uphold human rights and targeting feminist organisations and advocates.

Equality Now explains how these movements are “strategic and organised, with well-funded international networks that use religious and cultural justifications and weaponise the so-called ‘family values’ in order to reinforce regressive laws and gender inequality.”

“In light of mounting backlash, movement building and coalitions like the Hurra Coalition are essential,” asserts Dr. Dima Dabbous, MENA Representative for Equality Now. “When we stand together, risk is distributed. When one activist in a MENA country is attacked, 20 organisations from across the region respond and raise the issue in global human rights spaces to ensure accountability. Solidarity is our security strategy.”

Naglaa Sarhan, Hurra Coalition Coordinator and Equality Now Legal Advisor, explains, “This rhetoric does not protect families. Rather, it is weaponised as a tool to dismantle women’s movements, silence and intimidate human and women’s rights defenders, and obstruct vital reforms of family laws that continue to allow child marriage, deny women their financial rights, and deprive mothers of custody of their children.”

“Strong families are built on equality and justice, not on discrimination and subjugation. At the Hurra Coalition, we affirm that defending women’s rights means defending the family itself, and that fair family laws, grounded in international human rights standards, are the only path to safer, more equitable societies and more stable families.”

END

Notes to editors:

For media enquiries, contact Esra Saleh, Regional Communications Officer, MENA, Equality Now esaleh@equalitynow.org, or Tara Carey, Associate Director, Media, Equality Now Tcarey@equalitynow.org. 

About: The Hurra Coalition is a regional network of feminist and human rights organisations across the Middle East and North Africa working to reform discriminatory family laws and ensure equality and justice for women and girls. Established in 2019 as an initiative by Equality Now and six founding members, it serves as a platform for solidarity, legal advocacy, and coordinated regional campaigning.

Today, Hurra includes more than 20 national women’s rights organisations from ten Arab countries, encompassing legal associations, research centres, anti-violence institutions, 

and development organisations. This diversity enables the coalition to draw on deep national expertise and collective regional strategies to advance reform. 

About: Equality Now is a worldwide human rights organisation dedicated to securing the legal and systemic change needed to end discrimination against all women and girls. Since its inception in 1992, it has played a role in reforming over 140 discriminatory laws globally, positively impacting the lives of hundreds of millions of women and girls, their communities and nations, now and for generations to come. 

Working with partners at national, regional and global levels, Equality Now draws on deep legal expertise and a diverse range of social, political and cultural perspectives to continue to lead the way in steering, shaping and driving the change needed to achieve enduring gender equality, benefiting all.

For more details, go to www.equalitynow.org, Bluesky equalitynow.bsky.social, Facebook @equalitynoworg, Instagram @equalitynoworg, and LinkedIn Equality Now.