He fell in the hands of the man when he learned that his divorcee got married in a customary way even though she is still receiving her full expenses from him, and he only felt himself while he was inside the office of the Public Prosecution demanding to drop her custody of his two children whom it deprived him of seeing them, as well as returning the money she took from her unworthy from his point of view.

And customary marriage, in this case and the like, is a marriage attended by witnesses and the guardian, but it is not written in the official document carried out by the marriage officer or his representative.

This case is not alone, but there are many cases in which a divorced woman, widower, or daughter marries customary to preserve the alimony or pension of the husband or father, and so that divorced women are not deprived of custody, and this is done with the knowledge of the family and those around.

Indeed, the deputy head of the Defense Movement for Pensioners confirmed, in press statements, that this and the like, unlawfully appropriating pension funds, is widespread among many citizens in villages and governorates.

For the pension

Umm Hala is over forty years old, she has 3 sons and two daughters, and Abd al-Raouf - who is her cousin whose wife died without childbearing - offered her to marriage, but she refused when one of her relatives told her that the government would stop paying her deceased husband's pension upon her remarriage.

Therefore - according to what a neighbor told them to Al-Jazeera Net - they held a simple party and the neighbors and family understood that it was a legal and documented marriage, and they lived as such married in front of people, but in reality they did not make a contract and were content with a customary paper in order for the woman to remain in a divorced state with regard to official papers in order to She continues to receive her deceased first husband's pension.

Two options are both bitter

When a young man proposed to marry me, I fell between two options, both of which passed. The first is that I marry a second time, and give up my father's pension that I have received since my first divorce from my first husband, and the second of them is to refuse a groom I do not know when someone else will come and may not.

This is how Nadia justified, to Al-Jazeera Net, her marriage to a martial contract in order to preserve her father's pension, which she says is a large sum that she fears losing, adding that it is not a favor from the government, but rather the right of her father, who paid him for social insurance throughout his career.

But what is interesting is that a family dispute with her cousin pushed the latter to slander her, as she informed the official authorities, and the matter ended with the transfer of their matter to the prosecution, which is investigating with them on charges of unlawfully seizing the pension authority’s funds and giving false information.

There are those who replace the official marriage with custom to present divorce papers to the official authorities to have a share in the deceased father's pension (Pixels)

Fake divorce

Laila's husband had an idea through which they could obtain the pension of her recently deceased father, that the husband would divorce her, replace the official marriage with my custom, and present divorce papers to the official authorities as a divorced woman who deserved a share in the deceased father's pension.

An employee of the Social Insurance Organization in charge of pension affairs confirms that many cases have been reported to the Authority, some of which were revealed through reporting due to family disputes or disputes or with neighbors, and some were revealed by chance.

A scandal by chance

Mohammadi told Al-Jazeera Net, preferring not to give his full name, what he described as the most famous story among employees of the Insurance Authority, which was revealed by chance when the Authority stopped paying the pension of a deceased man to his daughter after she got married, and she came to complain to the administration, so the employees understood that according to the law, she is not entitled.

Here, the woman’s voice was raised, objecting, saying, “Wax me so and my neighbor.” When the employees asked her to clarify, she told them that her neighbor has been married for 5 years and is still spending her father’s pension.

So the police were informed, and it was discovered that she was a common wife, and presented to the prosecutor and paid all the money she had taken unlawfully, in addition to a heavy fine, according to Mohammadi.

Aggressors of public money feel no guilt or conscience (Getty Images)

No guilt

Psychologist Mahmoud Rashwan attributes the large number of these cases to an internal feeling for those who commit this infringement of insurance funds that they are taking a right paid by their parents or their husbands throughout their careers, and they are more deserving of it than the government.

He points out that those aggressors to public money do not experience any sense of guilt or a prick of conscience, as they reckon that the father or husband worked for tens of years, during which he deducted monthly sums of insurance, and that he did not complete a few years after leaving the pension until he died, and he took only a small percentage Than he paid.

However, Dr. Magdi Ashour, the scientific advisor to the Grand Mufti of the Republic, believes that not documenting the marriage for the purpose of obtaining the husband's pension is a circumvention of the law, because it takes money that is not permissible to take, and is illegal.

And he added, in press statements, that this is considered a forbidden act, because the state’s laws have allowed the payment of the pension with certain controls, and this is considered to be consuming people's money unlawfully, as the money that the wife receives is not her right, as he put it.

In fact, there are sheikhs, such as the former president of Al-Azhar University, Dr. Ahmed Omar Hashim, and professor of interpretation, Abd al-Mu'ti Bayoumi, who believe that customary marriage is forbidden even if it is full-fledged, so lack of documentation - according to their fatwas - exposes women's rights to being lost.

Fri permits

Contrary to these views, the former Mufti of the Republic, Dr. Ali Jumaa, permits common-law marriage and does not even consider it forbidden for a customary married woman to obtain the pension of her deceased husband or father, explaining that the customary contract does not require the husband to spend on his wife, and she may obtain the pension .

He added, during his answer to a question in a TV program that he presents, that women have the right to marry customarily in order to be within the limits of chastity away from obsceneity, and at the same time keep the pension set for her, and that this is a loophole in the law, and we can exploit its differences in the interest of the citizen, as he put it.

From the legal point of view, Bilal Jaber, a lawyer specializing in family issues, confirmed that the law punishes anyone who illegally obtained the Insurance Authority funds or gave incorrect data, or refused to disclose data, with a fine of not less than 10 thousand pounds (about 16 dollars). Pounds) and not more than 50 thousand pounds.

Gabr confirmed to Al-Jazeera Net that the law revokes the right of a woman who was receiving a pension on behalf of her father or husband if she married another, and the same applies to a husband entitled to a pension on behalf of his deceased wife.

The number of pension recipients is more than 10 million and 324 thousand, according to the latest data update by the Ministry of Social Solidarity.

The Minister of Social Solidarity stated that the total amount that will be disbursed to pensioners during the new fiscal year 2020/2021 amounted for the first time to 295 billion pounds.