Egypt Court Recognizes Rapist as Child’s Father

A 27-year-old Egyptian woman, Amal Abdel Hameed, has won a landmark legal battle after an appeals court recognized the man who raped her in 2018 as the father of her daughter. The written judgment, issued last month, was the first such ruling by an Egyptian court, according to lawyers, and was based partly on DNA evidence.

The girl, now nearly eight, had been unable to obtain a birth certificate because her paternity could not be legally established under Egyptian law, as she was born outside wedlock. Without a birth certificate, she lacked official access to public services. Although she attended school, she was unable to take exams. With Egypt’s new academic year approaching, her mother now hopes to enroll her officially for the first time.

Under Egypt’s Personal Status Law, which is based largely on Islamic Sharia law, the child’s paternity could previously be legally established only through marriage.

The court ruling followed a religious edict issued in February by the top scholarly body of Al-Azhar, a prominent center of Islamic learning in Cairo. It said that in the case of Abdel Hameed’s daughter, DNA testing and the rape conviction could be used to establish paternity.

Lawyers and activists hope the ruling will set a precedent for thousands of children in similar circumstances and pave the way for changes to the relevant provisions of the personal status law, which is under debate in the Egyptian parliament.

(Reuters, max)