Qatari women want citizenship rights for children of non-citizen fathers

By Nasser El Ghanem in Doha
For Al-Shorfa.com
2010-05-04

[VALERY HACHE/AFP/Getty Images] Qatari women want to be able to give the children of non-Qatari fathers full citizenship rights.

Um Abd Elrahman's story summarizes the situation for many Qatari women married to non-Qatari men.

Um Abd Elrahman had married one of her tribesmen who had Gulf States citizenship and was working in Qatar. But when he died in a car accident last year, her four children were denied Qatari citizenship and its privileges.

Qatar is a tribal society that rarely witnesses marriages between Qatari women and non-citizens. But such marriages do occur, especially between Qatari women and their relatives from the other Gulf States.

The law, however, does not recognize the right of children to Qatari citizenship if the father is from outside the country. To be eligible for citizenship, children of Qatari mothers need to meet certain conditions: an uninterrupted 25-year stay in Qatar, a legal means of earning a livelihood, a good reputation and behaviour, and a good command of Arabic.

But women like Um Abd Elrahman argue that a Qatari mother needs citizenship for her children at an early stage in the their life. Without citizenship, they cannot enjoy rights such as health care, residence, an education, the right to own property, and the right to work. She told Al-Shorfa that conferring citizenship on her children would let her rest easy about their future.

Lawyer Abd Ellatif Al Muhannadi, in a statement to the Qatari newspaper Al Raya, called for the re-examination of some of [citizenship] laws.

"The legislature differentiated between the Qatari man and woman in granting citizenship to their children. This violates the constitution, which states the principle of equality between men and women in rights and duties. Hence, as long as the mother is Qatari, then her children should be Qatari too," Al Muhannadi said.

Secretary General of the Supreme Council for Family Affairs (SCFA) of Qatar, ‎Nour Abdallah al-Maliki, called for amending the family and citizenship laws, as well as drafting a law for protection against domestic violence.

In a conference held in Doha on the rights of the Qatari woman, al-Maliki said that a woman's right to obtain citizenship for her children runs into security and political considerations, and the majority of Qataris of both sexes do not support it for social and cultural considerations.

Other problems that Qatari women married to non-citizens face include negative social attitudes, Um Khalid, a Qatari mother, told Al-Shorfa.

"In addition to depriving the children of citizenship, there are unfavourable social attitudes towards Qatari woman who are married to non-citizens, due to the nature of the tribal society in Qatar," Um Khalid said.

Um Khalid who married a non-citizen says that her children enjoy good rights, but she really wants them to be able to obtain Qatari citizenship.

'They are Qataris, born on this land, and one of their parents is Qatari," she said. "I see no difference between them and any other Qatari citizen."

Bookmarking

Please comment on this article so that we can improve the experience of viewing this website.