October 15, 2002	Tuesday	Sha'aban 8, 1423

MANAMA, Oct 14: More than 300 Bahraini women staged a sit-in outside the justice and Islamic affairs ministry here on Monday demanding the enactment of a personal status law.

The protesters, including divorcees, activists, lawyers and members of political and women’s associations, also demanded that family and women’s disputes be settled by civil and not Islamic courts.

A small group of women opposed to a personal status law demonstrated at the same time.

Activist Ghada Jamshir said the protesters had delivered to the president of the high council of justice, Sheikh Abdurrahman bin Mohammad bin Rashid al-Khalifa, a “memorandum demanding the enactment of a law banning polygamy, except in extreme cases such as a wife’s illness or paralysis, or with her written consent before a judge.”

Jamshir said Sheikh Abdurrahman had promised to study the demands and to work to enact a personal status code.

Eight Bahraini women are standing in the Oct 24 parliamentary elections in which they will compete with 182 male candidates.

The legislative polls, the first in the Gulf archipelago in 29 years, are part of a democratization drive launched with a 2001 referendum on a national charter.—AFP