Lebanese women demand citizenship rights for their children

By Najia Housari in Beirut
For Al-Shorfa.com
2010-03-20

[ANWAR AMRO/AFP/Getty Images] Samira Soueidan (C) holds her Lebanese passport as she sits with her sons Mohammed (L) and Samir Ahmed (R).

Samira Souweidan "cried and kissed the ground" when she heard that Judge Jean Azzi ruled that she had the right to grant her Lebanese citizenship to her children.

Samira, who is married to an Egyptian and lives in Bourj Hammoud, one of the poorest neighbourhoods of Beirut, said her "dream finally came true", after spending over ten years demanding citizenship for her children.

Samira's husband died in 1994 and she was forced to work as a cleaner in order to provide for her four children who carry the Egyptian nationality. She has to renew their residence permit every year and pay fees amounting to $800. If she fails to comply with this legal procedure, her children could face deportation to Egypt, a country which they have never set foot on.

Samira's joy was short-lived, as the state soon appealed the ruling, which had caused a political firestorm. Many said it could lead to settling Palestinians in Lebanon and upset the demographic balance between Muslims and Christians.

The citizenship law currently in force came into effect in 1925 -- 18 years prior to Lebanon's independence. It states that "every person born to a Lebanese father is a Lebanese person". The ruling of Judge Azzi at the court of first instance in Metn set a precedent which the state, represented by the Court Cases Committee at the Ministry of Justice, did not approve.

Judge Azzi defended his decision in a lecture he gave last month at the Beirut Bar Association.

"Everything that is said about naturalization and demographic balance is simply political rhetoric and an attempt at misrepresenting reality," he said. "They are not against naturalisation; rather they are against women and see her as legally minor. This is male chauvinism."

Women's rights activists regard the citizenship issue as one of the most blatant examples of discrimination against women and Lebanese women not enjoying a "full citizenship".

"Now is not your time" was the phrase that kept resounding in the ears of Dr. Fahmia Charafeddine and other activists every time they lobbied parliament or a politician to abrogate laws and end practices that are discriminatory towards women.

"The problem of discrimination against women in Lebanon is not based on sectarian factors, rather it is cultural, and everybody contributes to discrimination against women from early childhood," said Dr. Charafeddine, a social sciences professor at the Lebanese University.

A field survey on women's issues funded by the United Nations Development Programme in Lebanon found that 18,000 marriages between Lebanese women and non-Lebanese men occurred between 1995 and 2008. The number of people prejudiced by the current citizenship law is 77,400 in a country of less than 4 million according to estimates.

The highest percentage of marriages between Lebanese women and non-Lebanese men occurred among the Sunnis, followed by Shias. More than half of all marriages between Lebanese women and non-Lebanese men occurred among Sunnis at 52%, followed by Shias at 34% and Orthodox Christians at 6%.

According to the survey, 78% of Muslims women married Arab nationals while 50% of Christian women married non-Arabs.

The percentage of women married to Palestinian men is 24% among Muslims women and 7% among Christian women. However, Muslim women married to Syrian men constituted 21%, while the percentage is higher for Christian women reaching 31%. The percentage of Muslim and Christian women married to Egyptian men is almost the same.

A Lebanese woman married to a British national said she was surprised when the Lebanese Police at the Beirut airport asked her for an entry visa for her child. When she asked a security officer about the reason why she could not grant her citizenship to her son, he replied sarcastically, "You can in one situation only: if you register him as an abandoned child."

Fatima A., another Lebanese woman married to a foreign national, said she troubled by the prospect of losing all her possessions in Lebanon, which include businesses and investments. She said that after her death, her children will not be able to obtain their inheritance except by a decree, which is why she will be forced to "sell everything I own and send the money out of Lebanon so that my children could get it".

The legal irony is that a Lebanese man who marries a foreign woman can grant her Lebanese citizenship one year after marriage. If that woman was previously married to another foreign man with whom she had children, she has the right to give her Lebanese citizenship to her children from that man.

Linda Matar, spokeswoman for The National Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and president of the Lebanese Commission for Women's Rights, considered this clause "the pinnacle of inequality between men and women".

Interior Minister Ziad Baroud, who entered politics through academia and is a citizen's rights activist, proposed a bill last year to amend the citizenship law. But the bill did not land on the cabinet or the parliamentary agenda because the country went through a series of political crises.

And with women activists intensifying their efforts, some politicians are trying to make an end run that limits the effects of this problem without actually changing the law, such as reducing the residence permit fees.

Lebanon has reservations on the clause of women's right to grant citizenship to their children mentioned in the agreement of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Other Arab countries lifted their reservations regarding the citizenship law in order to conform with the CEDAW agreement. Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria have all amended their laws.

Dr. Charafeddine said that Egypt could be taken as an example. Many Egyptian women and Palestinian men are married. Egyptian authorities have enacted a law allowing an Egyptian woman to grant citizenship to her husband with certain conditions.

"We don't mind the rules, but they should be fair," she said. "For example, the condition of having been married for at least five years provided that this is applied to men and women equally."

Having analyzed the electoral rolls and the number of births in Lebanon, she said that "the proportion of Muslims and Christians remained the same for 90 years, which is why these sectarian groups should not worry about the issue of granting citizenship. Instead they should be worrying about the fate of thousands of families."

Also, an overall view of Lebanese women married to foreigners indicates that 22% are married to Syrians and 21.7% to Palestinians, which confirms that "the reluctance in amending the citizenship law is not based on a real assessment of the situation in the country," she added.

The field study on Lebanese women married to foreigners noted their apprehension about the future. A Lebanese woman married to a Palestinian expressed her anger at Lebanese politicians.

"They take my vote into account for the parliamentary elections and want my voice to be heard, but I stopped voting a long time ago," she was quoted as saying.

"If my voice has any significance, let them hear it. If my vote is equivalent to a man's vote, I should be equal to him in terms of granting citizenship to my son."

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