A week in Northern Italy discussing statelessness in MENA

To continue our engagement with research being conducted on citizenship and statelessness in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), between the 17^th to 19th September, the Statelessness Programme hosted a panel at the Sesamo conference held at the University of Pavia, to a conference entitled  'Making citizenship. Practices of exclusion and inclusion, claims and subjectivity in the Middle East and Europe,'.  Sesamo is a society that focuses on the study of the MENA  region based in Italy and they hold an annual conference on the region.  Together with former visiting scholar, Jason Tucker, we took the opportunity of this event to discuss our work on the MENA region with other academics whose work had focused on similar issues. 


Our panel was called Statelessness in the Middle East; Contesting the Boundaries of Citizenship. It began with Benjamin Smuin , who is from the University of San Diego, who spoke about his paper entitled Citizens Without States? Claiming Citizenship and Rights under the League of Nations Mandate System.  This then followed with a presentation by Thomas Mcgee from the University of Exeter - who we have previously worked with on research related to the Stateless Kurds for our MENA project - who gave his insights into the current situation of the stateless Kurds from Syria and their access to Syrian nationality.  In a loose temporal flow the panel ended with a discussion by our MENA researcher, Zahra Albarazi, and Jason Tucker who spoke about their paper entitled Citizenship as a political weapon - a mechanism for exclusion and inclusion in the region.   The paper examined how the shifts in the political discourse in the Middle East over the last few years have highlighted the use of citizenship as a political weapon - a mechanism for exclusion and inclusion. We argued that established perceptions of belonging to nation-states are currently being challenged, with the nation-state being re-defined through the contestation of the legal boundaries of citizenship. By focusing on citizenship as the legal link to a country, we explored with the audience the demands for citizenship by hundreds and thousands of stateless people throughout the region - those who are not considered a citizen by any state.  The discussion then looked at the recent policies of State manipulation in removing opposition voices from the political arena by both rendering nationals stateless and granting citizenship to stateless people to encourage support for threatened regimes.  We looked at the case studies of Bahrain, UAE, Syria and Kuwait to highlight these issues.  Why and how this exclusion has been created and how recent political shifts in the region have led to challenging the politicized power over defining citizenship was debated as the stateless provide an enlightening and in this conference unique analytical lens through which to view the concept of citizenship in the region. 

This was a good opportunity for two people from different fields, law and political science, to offer an interdisciplinary perspective on these very topical issues in the MENA region.  The conference also provided a great opportunity to hear about other research on citizenship being conducted in the area as well as to understand academic developments from a very wide variety of disciplines.  

From on-the-ground research to international lobbying

Every year, several countries are reviewed by committees – or ‘treaty bodies’– attached to the major UN human rights conventions to ensure that they are abiding by their international obligations, and to question them when they are not. This happens on a rotating basis for countries across all of the different UN committees. Before the committees address the countries, they ask review the report prepared by the relevant government about how the international norms are being implemented. They also collect and review submissions from NGOs and other organizations as to what they think are the most pressing human rights issues in the state and what is needed to address them. NGOs have an added opportunity of physically attending the pre-sessions, making a short oral statement on identified problems and answering any questions the committee would like further information on. This July, three countries in the Middle East and North Africa that still retain an element of gender discrimination in their nationality laws, came up for review before the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women: Iraq, Qatar and Bahrain. Although Iraq’s law is now greatly improved, none of these states fully grant mothers the right transfer nationality to their children on an equal par to men – a situation which can lead to new cases of statelessness.

 

This issue tied in perfectly with our recent research with the Women’s Refugee Commission, “Our Motherland, Our Country”. Continuing our joint follow-up advocacy , we considered this to be an ideal opportunity to talk to the CEDAW committee about the consequences of gendered nationality laws, specifically the problems that emerged from the findings of this report.  So, yesterday I was in Geneva to give the Statelessness Programme’s first ever briefing of a UN treaty body. After a mix-up of the starting times and length of session, things finally got going and I was invited to deliver  a short presentation. This was followed by some questions from the committee, to help them fill any gaps in knowledge they had on the issue. The presentation we had prepared contained quotes from some of the testimonials compiled during the WRC research, contextualizing the issue as a real humanitarian problem, and highlighting how family unity is being destroyed because of this discrimination in nationality laws. 

 

NGOs from around the world can come and talk about any state law or practise they feel is in violation of the convention, and they all do this together in the same briefing session. This provides a fascinating opportunity to understand more about other topics which often directly correlate to our own interests. A very active women's rights NGO from Iraq, for example, joined the same pre-session I attended and had a lot to say about Iraq’s flaws in adhering to its CEDAW obligations - they spoke about topics varying from the rise in cases of FGM to the lack of female representation in parliament.  We also learnt from them of the phenomenon of men who are identified as 'terrorists' in Iraq, who are forced therefore to live without the protection of the law and unable to conduct any legal transactions. Some (informally) marry, have children and often eventually abandon their families without any legal trace - leaving a new generation of children with no form of identification and putting them at risk of becoming stateless.

 

My time at the CEDAW pre-session allowed me to witness some interesting presentations and a lively question and answer session. It was clear that the Committee was very eager to hear the voices of people working on the ground and it was also very satisfying to find that the application and the procedure itself of briefing such a committee is very simple and easy to navigate. I admit that I went in with some doubts about this form of advocating for change, which seemed a rather abstract mechanism of lobbying, far away from lives of those we had met during the field research. However, actually, experiencing the process and seeing the real interest and enthusiasm of the committee and the NGOs involved, I came away newly inspired and would now firmly vouch for the importance and necessity of continued international pressure and support – alongside national initiatives – for the promotion of universally gender neutral nationality laws. We are really looking forward to seeing how the information we provided will feed into the review and questioning of these three countries by the committee.

 

Zahra Albarazi, Researcher and MENA statelessness expert, Statelessness Programme

No Country, No Rights: Gender Discrimination and Statelessness (re-post)

An estimated 12 million people worldwide are stateless, with no country to call home. They are not recognized as nationals of the countries where they live, and as a result are denied basic human rights. For many people, this situation arises because of gender discrimination in nationality laws. This occurs when nationality legislation prevents women from acquiring, changing, retaining or passing on their nationality to their children and/or their spouses on an equal basis with men. This discrimination must end and nationality laws must be changed.

Today, the Women's Refugee Commission, and the Statelessness Program at the University of Tilburg (Netherlands) are launching a report, Our Motherland, Our Country: Gender Discrimination and Statelessness in the Middle East and North Africa.

The report is based on field research we conducted in Morocco and Egypt, which have enacted nationality legislation to address statelessness, and in Kuwait and Jordan, which still maintain gender discrimination in their nationality laws. Twenty-nine countries around the world, 11 of them in the Middle East and North Africa, still have discriminatory nationality laws that make it impossible for women to transfer their nationality to their children, or to their non-national spouses.

Being stateless has grave consequences, often leading to violations of fundamental human rights. Stateless people face many barriers and obstacles: without citizenship or identity documents they are unable to own or rent property, secure formal employment or access services such as public health care, education and social welfare benefits. Statelessness impacts individuals' ability to marry and couples' decisions to start a family. As one stateless woman in Kuwait who has no identity documents told our researcher, "I cannot get married. The court will refuse to allow me to sign a marriage certificate because I do not exist." It also impacts inheritance and property rights, leaving those affected unable to transfer their financial and material resources to their children. Not surprisingly, the research found that statelessness impacted mental health, with widespread depression reported among individuals and families affected.

The recent enactment of reforms to nationality legislation in Morocco and Egypt has enabled women to transfer their nationality to their children, thereby conferring rights previously denied. The reformed law of 2007 in Morocco states, "A child born of a Moroccan father, or a child born of a Moroccan mother, is a Moroccan child." The reform has led to a resolution of previous problems with regards to residency and access to public health care. The greatest impact of reforms in Egypt in 2004 has been the ability of families to remain in the country without fear of deportation and access to education and employment. The reforms in these two countries demonstrate the positive change in individuals' and families' lives when gender discrimination is removed from nationality legislation.

The Women's Refugee Commission recommends that governments take immediate steps to amend their nationality laws to allow women the same rights as men to pass on their nationality to their children and non-national spouses, with retroactive effect. We are also advocating for governments to provide access to basic rights for those affected by gender discrimination in nationality laws, in particular, access to education, health care, employment, identity and travel documents.

Many of the governments with these discriminatory laws have ratified the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in addition to being bound by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It's time they live up to these obligations and reform their nationality laws to grant women equal treatment and stop the cycle of rendering generation after generation of children stateless because of whom you marry.

This post originally appeared on the website of the Huffington Post at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-costa/no-country-no-rights-gend_b_3398826.html

Introducing… Ivan Kochovski, intern assisting with research on nationality and statelessness in the MENA region

As I have been a part of the Statelessness Programme for a couple of months now, it is time to introduce myself and the work I have been doing at the Programme. My name is Ivan Kochovski and I am a LLM candidate at Tilburg University following the International and European Public Law programme with a specialisation in International Law and Human Rights. As of October 2012 I am an intern at the Statelessness Programme working on the “Nationality and Statelessness in the Middle East and North Africa Project” (MENA Project).

Supervised by both Dr. Van Waas and Ms. Albarazi, I am working on compiling fact-sheets on the situation of statelessness and nationality in each of the MENA countries using country reports prepared by local experts. Recently, I have also been working on a report examining the manner in which the issue of gender discrimination in terms of nationality has been dealt with for the MENA countries at the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) - the first universal review process examining all human rights questions in every UN country.

Statelessness is not an easy topic to get involved with. This is not to say that it is extremely difficult, but it is challenging nevertheless. While discussing some of the misconceptions I had about statelessness with my supervisors and colleagues and working on the MENA region, I realized that statelessness is not simply a problem of badly drafted nationality laws or inaccessible nationality procedures that rendered certain people without a nationality. Some of its main causes lie deeply rooted in the past and present political power relations within the countries and the region. The Bidoon in the Gulf Region, the Kurds in Syria, and the Palestinians in the Levant are just some of the groups that have been left stateless due to specific political reasons. This does not mean that the nationality laws of the MENA countries are not deeply problematic or that there aren’t issues with the procedures, but rather that the causes of statelessness are a combination of both legislative and political factors.

For instance, Jordan has a gendered nationality law and does not allow women to transfer their nationality to their children or spouses. Even though such discriminatory legislation can be seen as a purely legal matter, the issue becomes more complex with the fact that there are many Jordanian women married to non-nationals and the country is host to a large stateless Palestinian population. One of the reasons the Jordanian leadership has been reluctant to amend the nationality law, to allow women to pass on their nationality, has been the fear that allowing such a large number of non-nationals to acquire citizenship will create a shift in the demographics and the political constituency, possibly leading to unforeseeable political turmoil. Leaving aside politics for a moment, one must not forget the predicament of the stateless. The recent research of Ms. Albarazi in Jordan showed that many of the stateless in Jordan live in conditions of extreme poverty with no access to healthcare and with no prospects of meaningful education or employment. The discriminatory provisions do not create only problems for the women and their spouses, but perhaps most worryingly for their children. Some of the interviewed women have indicated that their children have no future. The only way out of that situation for the girls is to marry a national and acquire his citizenship. The boys, who have no such possibility of regularizing their status, often drift between illegal jobs and are strongly discouraged by their parents from marrying or having children because that will create only further problems as they will not be able to provide for their family and will transfer the same predicament to the future generations.

Going back to the influence of politics on the issue of statelessness, perhaps the most prominent example in recent years of how nationality can be used as a strong political tool is the 2011 decree issued by Al-Asad’s government allowing a portion of the stateless Syrian Kurds to acquire citizenship. In the 1960’s as part of its Arabization policies the Baath government denationalized more than 20 percent of the Kurdish population. After the civil war broke out in early 2011, the government, in order to gain the support of the Kurdish population adopted a decree that would allow more than half of the 300 000 stateless Kurds to acquire a citizenship. Even though there is limited information on whether this procedure has been implemented and perhaps statelessness is not the top priority in Syria at the moment taking into account the heinous atrocities being committed there, the 2011 decree is one of the clearest examples of how nationality can and is being used for political gains by governments. Syria’s nationality laws are also discriminatory towards women and there are reportedly more than 100,000 women married to non-nationals. As was the case with Jordan, one can see that the issue here is not purely political or purely legal. The Syrian government has also feared that granting more than 100,000 men married to Syrian women and their children nationality might cause a shift in the political dynamics of the state. As in Jordan, the stateless in Syria have lived in dire conditions for years and since the escalation of the violence the situation has grown worse.

There are many more such examples both from the MENA region and other regions in the world. The Nubians in Kenya, the non-citizens in Latvia, the Roma in the Balkans, the Rohingya in Myanmar and the Haitians in the Dominican Republic are just some of the groups in other parts of the world whose condition has been created due to both political and legal factors and continues to be detrimental due to both political reluctance to solve the issue and a lack of appropriate legal and humanitarian protection.

But what does this all mean in terms of solving the issue? Where do we find a solution? Do we look for a single solution or do we search for solutions in all aspects of the problem that would require more time? Given the limited resources, should one focus on the humanitarian side of the issue by trying to eliminate the extreme poverty and dire living conditions rampant among these populations or focus on pressuring states to live up to their human rights obligations and provide protection for these groups? Should short term goals, such as providing immediate humanitarian assistance, or long term goals, such as pressuring states to adopt legislation that would provide safeguards against statelessness, be a priority? Should the focus be on reminding the international community of its responsibility towards protecting stateless individuals? Or maybe even lobbing for the adoption of more effective measures in dealing with statelessness on the international legal and political level?

I do not have the answers to all of these questions. However I do think that in order to deal with the problem effectively the focus should be placed on all factors rather than just one. Even though this might sound too optimistic, the complex nature of the issue of statelessness necessitates a more comprehensive approach that would deal with the various factors on the local, national and international level. Exploring some of these specific factors and possible solutions to statelessness would require a different blog post or a more elaborate study. Nevertheless, by working on the MENA region both through the fact sheets and the report on how the UPR procedure has death with the issue of gender discrimination and nationality I continue to discover and grow to understand the specific aspects of the issue of statelessness in the MENA.

Ivan Kochovski, Statelessness Programme intern

Punished for not having a Jordanian father

I have been working on the issue of statelessness for several years now.  During this time, I have focused mainly on legal research and awareness raising work, and I have been continually fascinated by the legal intricacy statelessness unfolds.  Despite this interest, and despite having done previous field research on the issue, I do not think I truly comprehended the extent of the problem of statelessness until now.  Through my involvement in a project co-ordinated by the Women’s Refugee Commission, conducting advocacy-oriented research in four countries that maintain or have recently removed gender discrimination from their laws, I have had the opportunity to spend time with affected families.

I am now coming to the end of my stay in the first country of research: Jordan.  Here, women are not entitled to transmit their nationality to their children so, in a variety of circumstances, children of Jordanian mothers end up stateless. My time here has emphasised how, as well as being a legal, political and theoretical conundrum, statelessness really is a major humanitarian problem.  Having compiled nearly 50 testimonials and facilitated several focus group discussions, I have discovered something unique in each story and the problems it highlighted.  Women’s inability to confer nationality has affected each family differently, but it has also affected each family severely.  

I have sat in houses listening to women explaining how their children have, over the years, become increasingly ill as access to free healthcare was barred due to their lack of nationality.   Added to this, as they are not Jordanian citizens, these children rarely have access to assistance provided by charities.  I have been amongst young disillusioned men who are repeatedly arrested and temporarily detained as they carry no ID documents –being children of female Jordanian nationals gives them no right to identity papers.   I have been in houses where the men sit all day at home, with no hope of finding legal employment, and seen foreign husbands who have to choose between remaining unemployed or working and risking deportation because they can’t afford expensive work permits.

Many of the families I met lived in very poor areas.  Statelessness in these areas has one thing in common - it protracts, prolongs, and exacerbates this poverty.  However it was not a problem exclusive to the poor.  There was also the college student I met who was not able to travel because of her situation, and whose mother worried as she could never inherit from her family, since registering anything under her name is impossible.

Whilst in Jordan I also heard of a high-profile case of a Jordanian women who was attempting to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge.  Her husband and children are trying to cross the border from Syria to Jordan to escape the violence.  They, however, were refused entry.  Putting aside regional politics, the fact that the man was married to a Jordanian, or that the children had a Jordanian mother, meant nothing.   Not only can the children not obtain Jordanian nationality, they do not have the right to even enter their mother’s country under extreme humanitarian circumstances.  

Not having the right to confer nationality to your children is often framed as a women’s rights issue. In the Levant region there has been much positive action and a variety of initiatives have sprung up to try and repeal this gender discrimination. And yes, it is clearly a gender issue, but this should not overshadow the fact that it is also so much more.  It becomes a child’s rights issue when you ask a nine year old boy what he wants to be when he is older, and he replies that he can’t continue school for long, so nothing.  Or when a two month old newborn is ill and coughing in the cold but has no access to free healthcare anywhere, as she is not a citizen of anywhere.  Furthermore, it is often the men that suffer the most from this discrimination in the region.  In addition to not being able to work and provide for their families, most families said they would only allow their daughters to marry citizens, so that they would be able to become Jordanian and the next generation’s access to nationality is also assured. For the stateless sons, the future is bleak – men have no hope of acquiring nationality through marriage and their children are doomed to inherit their condition.

Sitting in these houses and being amongst these families, gaining a very brief glimpse of the day to day, year to year, generation to generation struggles they experience highlighted how this really is a serious problem everywhere, with still so much more to be done.  One sentiment however that I heard from the majority of these families was their continued optimism that there can, must and will be a reform of the nationality law.  A sentiment that I have taken away too.

Zahra Albarazi, MENA nationality and statelessness expert, Statelessness Programme

ABOUT THIS PROJECT:
This is the first phase of the project The Statelessness Programme is conducting as commissioned by the Women’s Refugees Commission. The next stage of the study will be conducted in Morocco.  Discrimination in the nationality law was removed there in 2007 and the research hopes to discover how this amendment is being implemented and how it has impacted on the lives of the families who had been affected by this discrimination. The full findings of this project, alongside the video component will be available later in 2013.

Photo taken during a focus group discussion - most of the meetings were in people's homes, but this group met in relatively posh surroundings

Denationalizing Bahrainis, ousting the opposition

This month, the volatile situation that has existed across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) since the start of the Arab Spring saw a new development in Bahrain which has highlighted a worrying trend spreading across the region.  The Bahraini government ordered 31 of its citizens, all of them prominent opposition figures, to be stripped of their Bahraini nationality.  According to most reports only six of them hold another nationality (Bahrain does not generally recognize dual nationality), which means that an estimated 25 new cases of statelessness have resulted from this act. This decision follows high-profile denationalizations of several Emirati citizens in the UAE over the last year, prompting the worry that MENA States may revert to the practice of denationalizing citizens in response to broad ‘security concerns’ more frequently in the future.   

The Bahraini Ministry of Interior explained that it had exercised its powers under Article 10 of the country’s 1963 nationality law which allows the withdrawal of nationality under extreme circumstances. The 31 individuals concerned had been accused of 'undermining the security of the state’, which is a recognised ground for deprivation of nationality under this provision of the law. 

Whilst it is the sovereign right of any state to determine the conditions upon which nationality can be acquired or lost, the withdrawal of nationality from citizens must be undertaken with caution and must be done in adherence to both domestic and international regulations. Otherwise it would be at the discretion of any ruling political power to redefine its citizenry, denationalizing for example a section of society who they feel may not vote for them, or a section of society whose religious beliefs differs from theirs.

Article 10. 4 of the Bahraini law indeed allows the withdrawal of nationality when someone 'causes harm to the security of the State.' Whether the 31 individuals targeted in this instance have been found to seriously undermine the security of the State – and on what basis exactly – is not clear due to the lack of transparency of this decision.  There has been instability in the country, with a spate of bombings in the weeks leading up to this decision. Nevertheless, most indications show that this act of denationalisation was purely a political move.  One of the affected, lawyer Taimoor Karimi, was quoted by Human Rights Watch as saying that he had first heard about the decision through the media and had not been aware of any such impending process, highlighting this lack of transparency.  This suggests that what would be considered an accepted threshold of 'undermining the security' has not been met.  The government immediately publicly listed the names of the accused, including figures such as former MPs of the leading opposition movement, al-Wifaq, the head of the Bahrain Freedom Movement, and three Shiaa clerics - Hussein Mirza, Khaled Mansour Sanad and Alawi Sharaf.  Although no conclusion can be made without a full investigation, these individuals - all leading, opposition members - seem unlikely to have instrumented extreme militant acts.  Rendering them non-citizens is an attempt to de-legitimise criticisms against the government as it is now seen that they no longer belong to that State. 

Bahrain has declared that those affected would have the right to appeal this decision in national courts.  Article 11 of the same nationality legislation allows for restoration for those whose nationality was withdrawn.  However the likelihood of this being an independent and effective review is small.  Only a few days following this decision in Bahrain, the news from the Emirates was that its courts had rejected the appeal of the seven Emiratis who had their nationality stripped, again for 'threatening the security of the state,' setting a troubling precedent.

Perversely, the Bahraini Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Al Khalifah further stated that one of the reasons behind this action was that the country had seen repeated abuse by these individuals 'of the rights to freedom of speech and expression,' which they deemed could no longer be accepted.  It is not in any way clear how they came to the interpretation that these individuals had been enjoying too much of this fundamental right.  They have shown no evidence of the need to derogate from this right, but instead are claiming that the individuals somehow overstepped some necessary self-imposed limitations of this right which justified the withdrawal of nationality.  Besides the absurdity of the claim that someone has been practising too much of their right to freedom of speech,  any withdrawal of nationality in response to the legitimate exercise of a fundamental freedom should, by definition, be deemed arbitrary under international law. This stands at odds with the Interior Ministry’s official statement and comments on State TV in which he declared that citizenship  would be revoked 'in conformity with the kingdom's commitments under international law.' At the same time, the authorities’ belief that rendering the activists stateless would exclude them from the enjoyment of the right to freedom of speech is worrying and shows a significant lack of understanding with regard to the content of Bahrain’s international human rights obligations. 

It is unclear what will now happen to these former citizens, specifically the majority who still reside in Bahrain.  An individual who has no legal link to any country often is unable to access many basic rights, such as healthcare, access to documentation, travel and education, thus there is a risk of further, subsequent violations of international law. Other questions arise such as possible limitations on residency in Bahrain. As prominent activists, many of those affected have been very outspoken since this decision, and it is clear that they are acutely aware of the possible detrimental outcomes.  

In Bahraini State media we are now witnessing a vilification of these affected individuals – a traditional tool used by states to popularize support for decisions to disqualify certain individuals as citizens.  There are many accusations being used to justify why they have ceased to deserve having membership in the Bahraini citizenry. One example is the circulation of a picture of one of these denationalized stepping on his Bahraini ID card.  The media, in this case, is being used as a channel to communicate to the general public why these high-profile individuals no longer deserve to be nationals.

Worryingly, all of the denationalized are of the Shiaa confession, highlighting suggestions floating in the media that members of this sect are more likely to be loyal to foreign states – namely Iran.  This is a dangerous speculation that alienates and isolates this sector of society, and certainly does not address the prevalent socio-political problems of the country.  This move may also – probably one of the state’s objectives - instil a sense of fear in other opposition elements, especially those from the Shia sect, who would worry that if they continue to voice criticism they may also face this fate.

A broader reflection: is denationalisation a growing trend in the MENA?

Exclusionary citizenship ideologies and denationalization are not new concepts in the MENA region. Underlying factors for such policies range from delicate confessional demographics to the Palestinian presence, from Pan-Arab ideologies to a fear of changing the cultural make-up of a population.  To these motivations, we must evidently add the mechanism of using citizenship policy as a political tool: to quell opposition and silence minority voices. 

Unfortunately, although one of the few collective initiatives, this move is not an isolated one. The GCC, in particular, have not shied away from using this mechanism, targeting a specific confession or political ideology, to de-legitimize any sort of vocal opposition. This both discounts opposition figures from the national debate and often scares others into silence.  Already in Bahrain’s history, 1954 saw the denationalization of Abdul Rahman Al-Baker, a political leader whose activities were not appreciated by the ruling powers.  There have been other situations where Bahrainis studying abroad were not allowed to return and their passports were not renewed.  Although in 2001 the country saw a spate of political reforms, amongst them the restoration of the nationality of many who had in decades before seen their nationality revoked, this does not seem likely to develop as a norm under the current political tensions.

If States continue to see denationalization as a powerful mechanism, the worry is that we may see an expansion of targeted withdrawal of nationality in response to all manner of broad security or public order concerns which many MENA countries face today. This concern is especially acute where we are now seeing problems developing from the polarization of states, such as Libya or Syria. 

 
Zahra Albarazi, MENA Nationality and Statelessness Project Coordinator, Statelessness Programme

Beirut hosts statelessness dialogue

Women and men from states across the Middle East and North Africa affected by gender discrimination in nationality law gathered last week to discuss their experiences.  This exploration of the connection between gender discrimination and statelessness in the MENA region gave a window into the consequences of women not being able to fully benefit from their citizenship because of their gender.  Organized by the UNHCR and CRTD-A, a Lebanese NGO that focuses on women’s rights, this joint initiative for a conference: Dialogue with Women on Gender Discrimination and Nationality, was held.  Hearing the overwhelming impacts of statelessness from the families themselves- stepping away from the legal and political arguments - gave a moving insight into how living without a legal link to any State leads to a day to day struggle.

Having married a man from Mali, who shortly after having their child left, a mother from Syria told us how this had put her daughter in a hopeless situation.  From not being able to obtain a graduation certificate despite having finished 4 years of university education to having no access to employment, she told how her child who was unable to obtain her nationality was living a life unlike her peers’.  With inaccessibility to any Mali embassy, she is invisible with no prospects of legal marriage.

A  lady married to an Egyptian who had passed away before being able to register their children also shared her story.  Unable to give them her Jordanian nationality, she was left with bringing up six stateless children on her own.  Being the only person in the household who can work and provide for the family, she committed her life to getting an education for her children.  Her eldest son, who she struggled to get trained as a nurse, cannot access work in this field and hence is suffering from depression. 

A child of a mother in a similar position, this time from Lebanon, talked about the direct influence this issue had on his life, his family’s life and the effect this had on the community around him.  Despite being proud of his national sporting achievements and raising the Lebanese flag on an international stage, he cannot obtain Lebanese nationality papers. Two families have been rendered stateless, he cannot obtain the nationality of his country from his mother, his children cannot obtain it from his wife.  The future of his children and the viscous cycle they will continue to be in was what worried him most. 

These are just three of the many intricate stories shared.   Talking to all the participants it was striking to hear the common consequences generations have had to face because the woman married a non-citizen. Hearing and seeing how practical obstacles caused such psychological effects on the lives of many often led to emotional scenes for all.

Another unpromising and discerning theme common between the individuals was the dependency on discretionary acts to help them with their problems.  When asked how they had tried to change their position and what procedures they had taken to address them, there was always one answer. Wasta – having contacts in significant positions.  They all felt that the only opportunity to get help by knowing the right people, and those who knew no-one had no hope of change.   They were all aware of the social political and economic reasons behind the gender discrimination, but understanding the situation did not make it more acceptable.

Many representatives of women’s organizations across the MENA also joined the conference.  On Wednesday they discussed initiatives and strategies they had implemented in their own countries to advocate for change.  Yemeni, Moroccan and Algerian representatives explained the steps they had taken which resulted in reform - although not always exhaustive reform - in their own countries.  These included cooperation with international bodies, religious leaders, media campaigns, and continued pressure - often for many years - on the political decision makers.   There are many types of discrimination across much of the legislation in the region, but none so direct as male-dependent nationality. Often achieving change required changing societal perspectives before approaching legislative reform.

There were periods where the affected participants expressed hopelessness and lacked any real faith in future changes.  Uncertainty of what the future held for their families angered and saddened everyone present. Stories varied, details and procedures changed.  But the suffering between the individuals was the same. All due to a piece of paper they could not obtain. All due to institutional gender discrimination. 

Zahra Albarazi, MENA Project Coordinator, Statelessness Programme