Welcome to the 21st century, where the world has made great strides towards equality, yet discrimination against women still persists. Shockingly, in today’s world, almost 50 countries deny women equal rights to acquire, change, or retain their nationality or confer nationality to their foreign spouse. Even though the Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms that all humans are born free and equal, women are still being deprived of this fundamental right.
Out of the fifty countries around the world that discriminate against women in nationality laws, twenty-four have laws that deny women the right to confer nationality to their children from a non-citizen husband, a right that men married to non-citizen spouses enjoy.
In the MENA region, over half of the countries, including the six GCC countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates), Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Lebanon, Mauritania, Syria, Sudan, and Somalia, deny mothers the right to confer nationality to their children on an equal basis with men.
In addition to the aforementioned countries, female citizens in Comoros, Egypt, Morocco, and Yemen are also deprived of the right to grant nationality to their non-citizen husbands, a right that male citizens can exercise in granting their foreign wives nationality.
The Negative Impact of Discrimination on Women's Nationality Rights
Discrimination against women in nationality laws has severe consequences not only for women but for their families as well. Depriving women of the right to confer their nationality to their children and foreign husband leads to several aspects of discrimination, including denial of political representation, lack of education and employment opportunities, limited access to financial services, and inability to inherit property. The material and psychological costs are greater for these families, leading to a hereditary impoverishment that increases from generation to generation. Gender stereotypes and patriarchal attitudes that consider women as dependent on their husbands are the main reason behind these discriminatory laws. This leads to a constant risk of statelessness, deportation of children to the father’s country, and exposure to early and forced marriages for stateless girls. Discrimination also affects the access to healthcare, social benefits, and restricting freedom of movement. The anomaly in some countries that allows women to confer their nationality to their children if they are alone but not when they are married is another issue. It is essential to recognize the negative impact of discrimination on women’s nationality rights and advocate for equal rights for all genders.
The gender stereotypes that Arab states use to consider nationality laws have led to the deprivation of women’s independent identity as soon as they get married. This has created an anomaly in some countries that allow women to grant nationality to their children if they are single, but not if they are married. Furthermore, children are often considered to belong to their father’s nationality, even in cases of adoption, which makes it more likely for them to be associated with their father’s nationality rather than their mother’s, even if they reside in their mother’s country. This reinforces the gender discrimination that women and their children face.
The Magnitude of the Problem
Gender-based discriminatory nationality laws vary in severity across different countries. Some countries, including Kuwait, Qatar, Lebanon, and Somalia, only allow mothers to grant nationality to their children in limited exceptions. Other countries, like Bahrain, Jordan, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Syria, permit mothers to confer nationality to their children under certain circumstances, such as when the father is unknown, stateless, or has denied the parental lineage of the child. In some countries, such as Iraq, and Mauritania, mothers cannot pass on their nationality to their children if they were born outside the country.
In addition, forty-four states around the world do not allow women to grant their nationality to their non-citizen spouses on an equal basis with men. Most of these states do not have special provisions in place to allow married women to transmit nationality to non-citizen spouses, even though such provisions exist for men married to non-citizen wives. Countries like Egypt, Lebanon, Kuwait, Syria, Sudan, and Yemen fall into this category. However, ten states, such as Iraq, Iran, Oman, and Tunisia, have the right to apply for citizenship under normal procedures and reduced conditions.
Eliminating Discrimination: Efforts towards Gender-Equal Nationality Laws
On December 18, 1979, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). It recognizes that discrimination against women violates human dignity and obstructs their participation in all aspects of life, hindering societal and family growth. Signatories of the convention commit to incorporate the principle of gender equality in their national constitutions and take legislative measures to prohibit all forms of discrimination against women.
Efforts towards gender-equal nationality laws have shown positive results in recent years. In the first decade of the 21st century, five Arab countries – Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Yemen – enacted legal reforms in support of equal rights in granting nationality to children.
In 2014, the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights (GCENR) was established, dedicated to eliminating gender-based discrimination in nationality laws worldwide. It has provided support to reform discriminatory laws against women in many countries.
The Arab regional momentum towards gender-equal nationality laws was revived when the League of Arab States (LAS) organized the first LAS meeting dedicated to women’s nationality rights. The meeting resulted in the Arabic Declaration on Belonging and Legal Identity, calling for the elimination of gender discrimination in nationality laws and the development of a regional action plan.
International and civil society efforts continue towards creating a world without discrimination or bias. As the saying goes, “the thousand-mile road begins with a single step,” and in just the past two decades, numerous countries have taken significant steps towards enshrining gender equality in nationality rights.
