BySCEME
Tackling Lebanon’s Discriminatory Citizenship Laws
This report from Aljazeera may be a couple of years old but, unfortunately, Lebanon’s citizenship laws have not changed. The nationality law in 2011 dictates that women who are married to foreigners cannot pass on their Lebanese citizenship to their children (they must be widowed to do so). However, a Lebanese man who marries a foreigner may pass on his nationality to his children and wife. The result is that children with Lebanese mothers and foreign fathers continue to be viewed as immigrants by the state. They are denied all access to public schools and hospitals and are unable to work without costly residents permits that have to continually be renewed. Women’s rights groups such as The Lebanese Council of Women, continue to push for change on this disturbing act of gender-inequality that spans across numerous countries in the MENA region. What is important now is that an active dialogue is created as a means of putting pressure on those who enforce this unjust and distressing legislation.
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