WUNRN
Lebanon
- Nationality/Statelessness - Women & Children - Citizenship Rights
By
Dalila Mahdawi
Daily Star staff
December 14, 2009
BEIRUT:
In the Middle East, the word “statelessness” usually conjures up images of
Bedouins in the Gulf, Kurds or the Palestinians. But in Lebanon, at least, it
is the descendents of Lebanese women married to non-Lebanese men who are
arguably those most affected by a lack of belonging. While Lebanese law
allows men to pass on their nationality to non-Lebanese wives and children
after their marriage is registered, it prohibits Lebanese women married to
non-Lebanese from doing the same. Depending on the nationality laws of the
father’s country, Lebanon’s sexist “law can result in statelessness,” said
Berna Habib of Frontiers Ruwad Association, one of the few organizations in
Lebanon working on statelessness.
Those
who are considered stateless do not enjoy a legal bond of nationality with any
state, or those who have legitimate claims to citizenship but who cannot prove
that right, or whose governments refuse to give effect to their nationality,
Habib said. Yet despite being forbidden under international law, statelessness
affects several thousand people in Lebanon.
“We
know statelessness is a problem in Lebanon but we don’t know the exact scope of
the problem,” said Nadim Houry, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. “There
has been no mapping of the problem, but we do know that it affects thousands
and thousands of people.”
Initial
studies by the UN Development Program’s “Toward Reforming the Nationality Law
in Lebanon” project have suggested there are some 18,000 Lebanese women married
to non-Lebanese living in Lebanon. Including children and spouses, the UNDP
says the number of people rendered potentially stateless by Lebanon’s current
legislation numbers more than 80,000.
Without
state protection and recognition, stateless persons in Lebanon live in a legal
vacuum and are not entitled to state education or health care, cannot work in
the formal economy or vote, are vulnerable to arbitrary detention, and have
trouble accessing the legal system.
As
Lebanon only allows for nationality to be acquired through parents, those
without citizenship are doomed to pass on their statelessness to their
children.
Their
state of limbo is further entrenched by Lebanon’s reservation on Article 2 of
paragraph 9 of the UN Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women, signed in 1996. The reservation, along with two
others on family life and arbitration, appears to contradict the very principle
of gender equality as laid out in the convention. “We deal with women in
Lebanon as if they are minors,” said Halima Karkar, a lecturer at the Lebanese
University and the Saint Joseph University.
Kanaan
(not his real name), who has a Lebanese mother and Palestinian father, says
being stateless has left him without any sense of self-worth. “I can’t work or
plan for the future, I can’t travel, I can’t do any of the things most people
take for granted,” he told The Daily Star. “I’ve lived [in Lebanon] all my
life, I feel Lebanese, I dream in Lebanese, so why can’t I be considered
Lebanese?” Kanaan said he didn’t want to have children because they would be
“born invisible. It’s like we don’t exist.”
Those
deprived of citizenship constitute a “very marginalized group” in society,
Habib said. She added that Lebanon’s nationality legislation has been “frozen”
in time, having not been dramatically altered since 1925, when the country was
under French mandatory rule. In addition, Lebanon’s laws on citizenship have
not been clearly explained to the public, Habib said, noting that when a
Lebanese woman married a non-Lebanese man, some courts continued to view her as
Lebanese, while others considered her a foreigner. “The courts are not in
harmony when it comes to dealing with women married to foreigners. There is a
need for a clear legal framework to avoid confusion.”
Campaigners
have met with limited success in pushing for reform of Lebanon’s nationality
law. An amendment in 1994 gave the child of a Lebanese mother and foreign
father the right to obtain Lebanese citizenship, but only after the child’s
marriage to a Lebanese citizen, and only if they live continuously in Lebanon
for a minimum of five years, including one year after marriage.
Habib
also said a law existed that stipulated if a stateless individual was
determined by a Lebanese court not to be able to get any other passport, they
would be granted Lebanese citizenship but noted the law was rarely
upheld.
Total
reform of Lebanon’s nationality law is especially urgent now that other
countries have altered their laws in ways that can deprive the children of
citizens living abroad from gaining nationality, said Roula Masri of the
Collective for Research and Training on Development-Action, a Lebanese social
justice organization that has spearheaded calls for nationality rights for
women in the Middle East.
“The
Lebanese government should amend Article 1 of the Lebanese law to stipulate:
‘Every child born to a Lebanese father or a Lebanese mother is Lebanese,’” the
Committee for the Follow-up on Women’s Issues has urged, calling for the law to
be ratified and implemented.
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