File photo: Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao
COTABATO CITY (April 23) — A new ruling from the Bangsamoro Darul-Ifta is reframing a daily reality for many Bangsamoro women: leaving home to earn a living.
Fatwa No. 7 (2026) says Muslim women should not travel for work without a mahram, citing Islamic texts and the risks faced by workers away from home. While not legally binding, such guidance carries weight across the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, where religious rulings often shape family and community decisions.
The social impact is immediate.
For women in low-income households, mobility is often the difference between subsistence and stability. Jobs in cities or overseas—domestic work, caregiving, service roles—depend on the ability to travel independently. A stricter reading of the fatwa could narrow those options, especially where a male guardian cannot accompany them.
The ruling leans on safety, pointing to cases of abuse among migrant workers and interventions by the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration. Those risks are real. But limiting women’s movement may shift the burden onto them rather than fixing gaps in recruitment, protection, and enforcement.
It also rests on a premise—that men provide, women need not—that doesn’t hold for many families. In practice, women’s earnings often keep households afloat, fund schooling, and cover health costs.
The fatwa allows exceptions in cases of “necessity,” but leaves that line to interpretation. For some communities, that may offer flexibility; for others, it could harden into social pressure that discourages women from taking jobs beyond their locality.
What follows will matter more than the text itself: how families apply it, whether local leaders frame it as guidance or restriction, and if state agencies step up protections so safety does not come at the cost of opportunity.
For many Bangsamoro women, the issue isn’t whether to work—it’s whether they’re allowed to get there.
