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Highlighting experiences and voices historically overlooked, misunderstood, or forgotten, this book answers the urgent need for a more diverse and inclusive curriculum in family law in England and Wales.
The book helps readers diversify their understanding of the law and its often-unequal impact on citizens, equipping students with the vital skills and knowledge they need to be lawyers in the real world. Sectioned into three parts, the book covers key areas of family law including marriage, divorce, and parenthood, dispute resolution in family law, and domestic abuse. Each chapter takes a critical legal approach to the development and application of the law, enriched by underlining key issues from a range of perspectives to demonstrate the need to recognise diverse voices.
Written by a diverse team of expert contributors, the book also includes:
• further reading lists;
• helpful chapter summaries;
• end-of-chapter questions to spark discussion and reflection.
‘Family law is shaped by diverse cultural, religious, and economic contexts, and family law scholarship must reflect this complexity. This collection is both powerful and timely: it cuts through myths, and challenges sweeping assumptions about how family law is experienced today. It draws on a broad range of perspectives, from critical feminist studies to decolonising approaches, and issues, from the impact of child protection laws on racially minoritised and asylum-seeking children, to the struggles faced by migrant women and male survivors of domestic abuse, amplifying voices that are too often ignored. Engaging and thought-provoking, this book is required reading for anyone writing about family law, urging us all to ask whether our work truly represents the diversity of voices within society.’ Sharon Thompson, Cardiff University
‘This remarkable book leads us through the complexity of the Diverse Voices to be heard in Family Law concerning marriage and divorce law and parenting. On each topic we are given the facts, and then enabled to move forward by considering the questions arising: our family law system originating in traditional Christian values urgently needs to listen and learn!’ Mavis Maclean CBE, St Hilda’s College
1. Introduction – Rajnaara C. Akhtar
Part I: Marriage, Divorce, and Parenthood
2. Exposing Marriage Law: Colonial Definitions and Legacies – Zainab Batul Naqvi
3. Assimilation or Difference? Same-Sex Relationship Recognition in England and Wales – Andy Hayward
4. The Financial Realities of Getting Divorced in England and Wales – Emma Hitchings, Caroline Bryson, and Gillian Douglas
5. Forced Marriage in the UK: How Intermediaries and Expert Witnesses Help Successful Prosecutions – Aisha K. Gill
6. Legal Parenthood and Same-Sex Couples – Brian Sloan
7. Child Protection Intersectionality: Disparities in Racially Minoritised and Asylum-Seeking Backgrounds – Rachel Pimm-Smith
Part II: Dispute Resolution in Family Law
8. Family Dispute Resolution: Meeting the Challenge of Diversity – Maria Federica Moscati
9. Accessing Family Justice Without Lawyers – Rachael Blakey
10. Religious Communities and Family Dispute Resolution: The Sharia Councils Debate – Rehana Parveen
11. Participation of Children in Family Justice Processes – Connie Healy
Part III: Domestic Abuse in Families
12. It Can Happen to Anyone, but Not Everyone Has the Same Experience: The Need for Better Legal Responses to Domestic Abuse in the Family Justice System – Mandy Burton
13. In the Shadow of Hostile Environments and Bordering Regimes: Understanding Migrant Women’s Experiences of Domestic Abuse and Legal-Institutional Responses – Sundari Anitha
14. The Invisibilisation of Male Victims in the Family and Criminal Courts: Domestic Abuse, Honour-Based Abuse, and Parental Alienation – Mohammad Mazher Idriss, Elizabeth Bates, and Ben Hine
Conclusion – Rajnaara C. Akhtar