Niger – 2014 results

In Niger, there are 3 different sources of law, namely statutory, customary, and religious law, at times creating legal uncertainty due to a lack of any effective hierarchy.^[4] On the surface, Niger is a secular state and its 1999 constitution states fundamental liberal principles such as the protection of human rights (Art. 10-14) and the separation of state and religion (Art. 4), and yet a sizable majority of Nigeriens are Muslim (80% of the population) and family life (inheritance, marriage, divorce, child custody) and land tenure is de facto regulated largely by Islamic religious culture.^[5] In 2004, the civil code was amended to state that customary or Sharia law apply only if they comply with ‘ratified international conventions, the legislative provisions or fundamental rules concerning public order or personal freedom’,^[6] and yet discriminatory law and practices continue to be applied against women, including in areas of divorce, custody, and inheritance.^[7]A draft family code languished in the legislature for decades (originally proposed in 1976) before it finally collapsed in 2006, due to objections on the part of religious fundamentalists; as such there is absence of legislation governing marriage and divorce.^[8]

The Civil Code sets the minimum legal age of marriage at 15 years for women and 18 for men.^[9] It also stipulates that both parties must give their free consent, and that both civil marriages and customary marriages must be legally registered.^[10]2006 data from the UN reports that 60.6% of girls aged 15 to 19 years were married, divorced or widowed.^[11] Data from the 2012 Demographic and Household Survey (DHS) indicate that 62.9% of girls aged 15 to 19 years were married, divorced or widowed.^[12] By contrast, only 2.6% of boys aged 15-19, and 28.8% of men aged 20-24 were married, divorced, or widowed, suggesting that girls are being married off to men who are significantly older than them.^[13] Moreover, early marriage data from 2013 reveals that 75% of women between the ages of 20 and 24 were married or in union before they were 18 years old, ranking Niger first country in the world, within the 20^th highest-prevalence countries.^[14] Most marriages are conducted according to custom, proceed without the spouses’ consent and are never registered.^[15]While marriageable age for persons with customary status is 14 for girls and 16 for boys (pursuant to the Decree of 13 July 1939), generally women are understood to be ready for marriage with their first menses and the practice of dowry payment (also know as mahr) is common.^[16] In rural areas, families sometimes enter into an agreement whereby a young girl (aged between 10 and 12 years) joins her husband’s family under the guardianship of her mother-in-law.^[17] There are also cases where their families, under the guise of an arranged marriage, effectively sell girls into domestic and sexual slavery.^[18]

According to Article 213 of the Niger Civil Code, husbands are the heads of the household.^[19] The same article also states that both women and men share parental authority and are expected to contribute to assuring the moral and material direction of the family, including raising any children. Also, the Constitution of the Niger provides that parents have the right and the duty to raise and educate their children.^[20] Under customary law, men are considered the heads of families and their wives are expected to obey them. Even after divorce or the death of their spouse, women cannot claim the status of head of the household.^[21] That said, if a man has more than one wife, he is only considered to be the head of the household that he establishes with his original wife; subsequent wives are considered to be the heads of their respective households, even though they have no legal status as such.^[22] In the event of divorce or repudiation, under customary law, wives are usually granted custody of boys until they reach puberty and girls until they marry.^[23] But in some cases (and again under customary law), fathers are granted custody of their children from the age of seven (and sometimes younger).^[24]

In Niger, inheritance is governed by customary (which varies between different ethnic groups) and/or Sharia law.^[25]Sharia law stipulates that women may inherit from their father, mother, husband or children and, under certain conditions, from other family members. However, their share is generally smaller than that to which men are entitled. Daughters, for example, inherit half as much as sons, unless a will has been left specifying otherwise. Widows may not receive anything if there are no surviving children and are often the victims of “property grabbing” on the part of her deceased husband’s male relatives.^[26] According to the Chronic Poverty Research Centre, in 2006, 23.75% of widows inherited majority of assets after their spouses passed away.^[27] In some regions, when a husband dies, his property and land pass back to his family, and the widow may have limited access to these.^[28] Generally, the application of Maliki inheritance law is often tempered by the view that women are less responsible and reliable than men and therefore less suited to inheriting family property. As a result, women rarely inherit land at the time of the division of inheritance.^[29]

Reliable information about the legal status of polygamy in Niger was not available. Under customary law, men can take up to four wives while women can marry only one husband at a time. According to data from the 2012 Demographic and Household Survey (DHS), 36% of women aged 15-49 were in polygamous marriages.^[30]

Women and men’s rights to divorce are not symmetrical. While husbands can divorce their wives unilaterally under the practice of repudiation, while women wishing to initiate the rupture of her marriage through a divorce of this kind must return the marriage payment (mahr) to her husband. The latter, however, is often not in her possession, and in many cases was given directly to her father or other paternal representative who may have already spent it, creating a significant impediment to divorce.^[31]

The adolescent fertility rate in Niger, or the number of annual births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 19 according to the 2012 Demographic and Health Survey is 206.0. An estimated 40% of adolescents have begun their reproductive lives, and by 19 years of age 68% of women have already had a child.^[32]

When it comes to decision-making, 85% of women who earn money decide themselves how to spend the latter.^[33] However, in the majority of cases, it is husbands (77.3%) who make decisions concerning important household purchases.^[34]