Lebanon - Women & Citizenship Rights

LEBANON - International Women's Day underscores citizenship rights proposal

By Meris Lutz
Special to The Daily Star
Thursday, March 09, 2006

Women's Day underscores citizenship rights proposal

BEIRUT: International Women's Day may have passed quietly for most people, but all Lebanese - men and women - may soon have reason to celebrate if MP Ghinwa Jalloul's proposal to extend the citizenship rights to women succeeds.

The proposal, which Jalloul submitted two weeks ago, would allow women to pass on their nationality to their children and spouses, giving them equal citizenship rights to men.

Jalloul said pressing security concerns and Parliament's National Dialogue make it difficult to give the issue the attention it deserves, but that "we will not wait forever; Mothers' Day is on the 21, if we couldn't do it for women's day it could be on Mothers' Day."

There is no doubt that the Lebanese woman's lot has improved over the years, if slowly. Before 1946 a Lebanese woman who married a foreigner would lose her Lebanese nationality, and just three years ago working women were unable to receive fringe benefits like health care. Now, thanks to Jalloul, they not only receive those benefits but so do their children, regardless of nationality.

"The reason citizenship hasn't been dealt with before is that it's a cultural issue; citizenship is something related to blood, and this is through the father only in Lebanon," she said.

Jalloul also said politicians were afraid that allowing women to pass their nationality on to their husbands and children would disturb the delicate balance of the confessional system and open the door to Palestinian assimilation.

"Women, in many respects, have come a long way," she said, adding: "I would want to see the cultural barrier that prevents women from moving forward brought down completely. ... Men have been ahead of women for a long time."

The theme of women's citizenship rights was echoed at AUB on Wednesday, when the Women's Right's Club and the Collective for Research and Training on Development-Action (CRTDA) hosted a panel discussion, "My Nationality, a Right for Me and My Family," after three days of hard campaigning.

Women's Rights Club president Rania Jaber opened the discussion by announcing the campaign had collected over 450 signatures for their petition to change the law that prevents women from passing their citizenship on to their families.

The panel consisted of two lawyers, Iqbal Doughan, president of the Working Women League in Lebanon, and Ossama Salman; as well as Nadira Nahas who is married to a non-national, and Gina Bashier Muhyeldeen, who doesn't have Lebanese citizenship as her father is Iraqi.

"Why should we be forced to leave the country we grew up in?" asked Muhyeldeen, a law student.

"I can't work here, and in Iraq there's a war. I need to help my mom, but I can't. My brother has to go to work in Iraq in the middle of the war even though he was born here," she added.

The panel called on the government to change any law that prevented women from having the same rights as men, in accordance with the Lebanese Constitution, article 7 of which says men and women should be treated as equal citizens.

"We need to continue to fight in this country because it is our country and no one can take out rights," Muhyeldeen said. "We're either citizens or we're not, where's the Switzerland of the Middle East?"

Happy International Women’s Day!

LEBANON - CRTD.A Nationality Campaign

The CRTD.A Nationality Campaign Team was invited by American University Beirut (AUB) to put up a stand since Monday for the occasion of the International Women’s Day.

We used this opportunity to introduce the campaign, distribute material, gather support from the AUB community and circulate the petition which was signed by more than 500 staff and students!

Today, we are organizing a panel discussion with testimonials at the American University Beirut auditorium.

Lina Abou-Habib, Director

CRTD.A
POB 165302
Achrafieh 1100 2030
Beirut - Lebanon
fax + 961-1-611079 or 612924
www.crtd.org
www.macmag-glip.org
www.iris-lebanon.org

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http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=1&article_id=22773#

BEIRUT: "Hi, I'm Rana. This is my daughter - she's Norwegian," the young woman said, gently bouncing the baby on her lap as she passed out fliers reading "My nationality: a right for me and my family" at AUB on Tuesday.

Rana Issa is Lebanese; her daughter was born in Lebanon, but because Issa's husband is Norwegian, her daughter will never hold Lebanese nationality, since Lebanese law actually prevents women from extending their nationality to their children.

"My personal opinion is that if you don't address women's concerns, you're not going to change anything, sectarian differences or anything," Issa said. "This doesn't affect every woman in the country, but in principle it does; it affects a woman's value in the law."

Issa, who is pursuing her masters in literature, became involved with the Women's Rights Club when she heard it was co-sponsoring a women's nationality rights campaign with the Collective for Research and Training on Development-Action (CRTDA) in honor of Women's Day on March 8.

The CRTDA will be setting up booths in the ABC Mall, Achrafieh, and in Hamra Square during the day on Wednesday, as well as joining the AUB Women's Rights Club in sponsoring a panel discussion on the issue at AUB's West Hall at 5 p.m.

Issa described her own experience facing the difficulties of a mixed-nationality marriage.

"After she [my daughter] was born, we wanted to go back to Norway to visit his family," she said. "We didn't know we needed an exit visa for her, so when we got to the airport they said, 'you can leave, but she stays here.' They didn't care that her mother was Lebanese."

In addition to the legal discrimination regarding passports and access to state services like health care and education, Issa must deal with the negative stigma attached to Lebanese women who marry non-Lebanese men.

"I am treated by the officials as a fallen women for getting married to a foreigner. They say, 'why didn't you marry a Lebanese, aren't Lebanese men good enough for you?'" she said..

Issa's husband works as a freelance journalist since his foreign resident status prevents him from getting a job.

The foreign wife of a Lebanese man can apply for citizenship one year after their marriage.

Roula Masri, a gender program officer with the CRTDA, said the Lebanese government has already signed several international human rights conventions, such as the United Nation's Convention to Eliminate Discrimination Against Women, but refused to ratify articles explicitly calling for equal nationality rights for men and women.

"We want to change just two words of this law to say 'a child is born Lebanese of a Lebanese father or mother,' just two words," she said.

According to Masri, the Lebanese government doesn't want to amend the law because it might upset the Muslim-Christian ratio and open the floodgates to Palestinian refugees.

Masri described the arguments as hypocritical, since the same arguments could be made against a man's ability to pass on his nationality.

She also said the student response to the campaign has been enthusiastic, and she was surprised at how many people were unaware of the law.

"There are students mobilizing each other, men and young guys calling to other students, 'come sign the petition, it's for women's rights!'" she said, laughing and beckoning with her arms. "We had as many men as women."

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The Collective for Research and Training on Development-Action (CRTD.A) is a non-governmental organization initiated in July 1999 and based in Beirut. Whether working in Lebanon or across the Arab World primarily in Yemen, Egypt, Syria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria, CRTD.A seeks to contribute to the social development of local communities and organizations through enhancing capacities particularly in gender analysis, gender and development, poverty and exclusion, for the purpose of contributing to creating a more just and equitable environment.