A legal practitioner, Sena Hotor has confirmed that the majority of Islamic marriages in Ghana are not recognised by law.

This is because most Muslim, particularly those within the deprived communities, are ignorant about the law.

According to him, the Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in various regions of the country keep records of marriages, which most people are not well acquainted with.

Speaking on Prime Morning’s Divorce Series on Joy Prime, the lawyer indicated that all Mohammedan marriages are legally required to be registered. This, he said, makes such unions easily voidable.

"Most Mohammedan marriages can easily be set aside as not valid marriages because there is a requirement in law that the marriages have to be registered, but most of the Mohammedan marriages are not registered."

"In fact, there is a register at the MMDCEs’ office where all of those marriages are entered into, and the last time I spoke to one Municipal Chief Executive, they didn’t even know that they were supposed to do that. So, that invariably means that all the marriages that were conducted within that district that were Mohammedan are not valid," he explained on Monday.

As a result, it complicates and distorts property allocation between the couple once the marriage is broken and both parties decide to go their separate ways.

When children are involved, however, it is not much of a problem because the law explicitly lays out the child's rights regardless of the terms and conditions of the marriage or divorce.

With regards to filing a divorce petition at a law court for an Islamic marriage, Lawyer Sena noted that it is challenging because they prefer to follow the religion’s procedures.

Nonetheless, the services of a legal professional will be required only when properties and children are involved.

"The Muslim community would prefer to go through their processes when it comes to the creation and dissolution of their marriages by themselves. You only get to represent them when it has to do with property and children because the Islamic laws have a different percentage when it comes to the distribution of property," he noted.

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Meanwhile, under Ghana's law, all children, irrespective of their status, have equal rights to property distribution in every household.

According to ‘Al Islam,’ The Official Website of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, Islam permits divorce, but according to the Hadith, it is one of the most displeasing acts in the sight of Allah.