BySCEME
“It is her right to give the nationality to her children as much as his.”
According to the Syrian Nationality Law Mothers cannot pass on their nationality to their husband or child.
The child is deprived of basic rights of a citizen because his father is a foreigner. Identity-less “Syrian” children are deprived of free education, jobs, and the right to own property or travel abroad.
Children pay a heavy price every day for their mothers’ “blunder” of marrying non-Syrians. While there are no accurate statistics available, the Syrian Women League, a human rights organization, estimates that more than 100,000 women are married to foreign husbands, mostly from Lebanon, Egypt, and Iraq.
In 2003 the Syrian Women League started lobbying to grant nationality to children born inside and outside Syria. The league has proposed an amendment to a clause of the nationality law seeking citizenship rights for those born to either a Syrian father or a Syrian mother, inside or outside the country.
Currently only a Syrian man can give nationality for his non-Syrian wife and their children so that they can enjoy the rights of Syrian citizens.
The government finds marriages between Syrian women and non-Syrians to be a threat to national sovereignty and national security because women are emotional and “can be tricked so easily by men from enemy countries.” Damascus fears that the granting of full rights to foreign husbands would sharply increase such trends, especially temporary marriages with men from the Arabian Gulf.
Damascus also argues that granting citizenship to a large number of Palestinians residing in Syria and married to Syrian women would be a violation of the resolutions of a number of Arab summits. Arab leaders agree that nationality should not be given to Palestinians as they might lose their right of return to Palestine.
Human rights activists argue that if this is true then why is a Palestinian wife granted nationality when she marries a Syrian husband?
As Mohammad Habash, Islamic thinker and Syrian Member of Parliament stated, “The nationality law would not have a negative impact on Palestinians because they are treated well in Syria in terms of employment and education.”
Syria’s unjust legislation not only deprives women their due status in society but also reflects their poor prospects for work.
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