Thank you for that very important question. I work closely with Baroness Cox, and in fact, I have travelled across the Atlantic to give testimony to the House of Lords in England on the exact same issue. As you may be aware, there are over 85 sharia courts operating in the United Kingdom, and these were established with the blessing of the British government until the problems started arising.
When I had gone there last year, there were witnesses who came forward with many stories of Muslim women who were left in limbo because these sharia courts are practising marriage, divorce, and custody of children with no accountability. The marriages they're performing are not recorded in the civil courts by the government, so if a man says “I divorce you” three times, as was the practice, the woman has absolutely no recourse to go for any kind of custody of her children or financial benefit.
We brought in the victims, and finally the House of Lords started hearing the stories, and they understood that the lack of accountability of the sharia courts was a problem. They also wanted to hear from me about our experience in Ontario when there was a move to have sharia courts. We actually lobbied for over a year and we got the law changed, which allowed for arbitration and mediation. In the meantime, my recommendation to them was that these courts should be accountable. They have heard hundreds and thousands of stories of the victims of these sharia courts, who are 99.9% women. They are rethinking this issue, and I'm working with Baroness Cox again to try to get it moving.