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Waheeda Amien holds a Ph.D. in Law from the University of Ghent. Her doctoral thesis includes a comparative study of Muslim Personal Law and Human Rights. She is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law at UCT. She teaches in the Departments of Commercial Law, Public Law and Private Law. She has also presented guest lectures on Muslim Personal Law and Human Rights at among others, the University of the Western Cape, Ghent University, University of Lucerne, Daroel Ilm (Cape Town) and the Religious Studies Department at UCT. Her area of specialization includes Legal Pluralism and Human Rights in Personal and Family laws. She has reviewed articles, books, book chapters, book proposals and grant proposals for: Malawi Law Journal; Journal for the Study of Religion Review; American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences; International Journal on Law, Family and Policy; Journal of Religion and Human Rights; Journal for Islamic Studies; Ashgate Publishers; Association of Women in Development; and the British Economic and Social Research Council. She is a member of the editorial boards for the Handbook on Family Law and Policy (UK: Routledge, 2013) and Contemporary Studies in Legal and Applied Research (UCT).
Waheeda is also an Attorney of the High Court of South Africa. After completing articles of clerkship at the Legal Aid Board, she worked as a Researcher (and in some instances also Trainer) for a number of institutions including the South African Parliament's then Welfare and Population Development Portfolio Committee; then Law, Race and Gender Research Unit (UCT); and Conflicts in Human Rights Project at the Human Rights Centre (Ghent University). Waheeda further worked as a Law Clinician at the University of the Western Cape's Law Clinic in the capacities of Gender Convenor of the Gender Unit and Assistant Director of the Law Clinic as well as Acting Director of the Human Rights Research and Advocacy Project of the National Association of Democratic Lawyers (NADEL). As part of her socially responsive work, Waheeda is involved in numerous human rights organizations including, among others, being the Co-Founder and Trustee of Shura Yabafazi (‘Consultation of Women’); Chairperson of the South African Recognition of Muslim Marriages Forum; former Chairperson and current Board Member of Engender; former Secretary and current member of the Western Cape branch of NADEL; and member of the Legal Pluralism Commission. Apart from her academic publications, Waheeda publishes in community press and has been interviewed for the popular media, on radio and television regarding her work on Muslim marriages in South Africa.
For more information, see her profile on the UCT Academia site.
Teaching
Muslim Personal Law and Human Rights (Masters course:Department of Public Law)
Muslim Personal Law (Undergraduate course:Department of Public Law)
Business Law I (Undergraduate course: Department of Commercial Law)
Business Law II (Undergraduate course: Department of Commercial Law)
Certified course in Muslim Personal Law for UCT Law@Work
Selected publications
‘The Gendered Benefits and Costs of Legal Pluralism for Muslim Family Law in South Africa’ in Mavis Maclean and John Eekelaar (eds) Managing Family Justice in Diverse Societies (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2013) 107-123.
“Politics of religious freedom in South Africa” The Immanent Frame. Secularism, religion, and the public sphere (2012). Available at http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2012/07/24/politics-of-religious-freedom-in-south-africa/ (accessed 24 July 2012).
Book review for Ezeanokwasa, Jude Oseloka. The Legal Inequality of Muslim and Christian Marriages in Nigeria. Constitutionally Established Judicial Discrimination (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2011). In Religion and Human Rights 7 (2012) 65-69.
“A chronological overview of events leading up to the formulation of the Muslim Marriages Bill” in (ed) Tayob, A. Muslim Marriages in South Africa: From Constitution to Legislation, (Cape Town: Centre for Contemporary Islam, University of Cape Town, 2011) 8-16.
Book review for Shabana, Ayman. Custom in Islamic Law and Legal Theory. The Development of the Concepts of ‘Urf and ‘Ādah in the Islamic Legal Tradition (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). In Journal for Islamic Studies 31 (2011) 123-125.
‘A South African case study for the recognition and regulation of Muslim family law in a minority Muslim secular context’, International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family 24:3 (2010) 361-396.
‘Muslim Personal Law (MPL) in Canada: A case study considering the conflict between freedom of religion and Muslim women's right to equality’ in Eva Brems (ed) Conflicts between fundamental rights (Antwerp: Intersentia Publishers, 2008) 381-420 (Print ISBN: 978-90-5095-779-3).
‘Overcoming the conflict between the right to religious freedom and women’s rights to equality - a South African case study of Muslim marriages’, Human Rights Quarterly 28 (2006) 729–754.
Selected awards and achievements:
Contact
+27 21 650 5885
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