Women's Experience Considering Family Litigation Proceedings (A Study in Kerman)

Family litigation is a legal action resulting from unresolved disputes between members of a family, which begins with a petition. Applying the method of theme analysis and based on semi-structured and in-depth interviews with women referring to the family court (22 samples from the city of Kerman), this study aims to examine and analyze the experiences and problems of women. It also aims to answer the question that “What quality do women experience in the process of family litigation?” The results of the research indicate that a part of women's experiences are formed in relation to activists and another part is formed in relation to the laws and structures of the judicial system of family litigation. The categories of turning conflict and dispute into petitions for financial demands, payment of material and moral expenses, slow and gradual proceedings, terminating marital life, as well as, referring to counseling and arbitration and series of family lawsuits were formulated under the structural level since they were related to the structure of the family litigation system. And other categories like using the child as pressure levers, lack of access and knowledge, proceedings prone to legal tricks and actions of the actors of the proceedings were included in the individual level. The results of this study indicate that there are shortcomings and ambiguities in the scope of the content of the laws and the implementation of the decisions of the family courts, which indicate the intensity of hostilities by referring the family to the court, which needs to be reviewed in this regard..