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By Rana Husseini 28 December 2007 The Jordan Times AMMAN - Um Omar is a Jordanian who married a Syrian construction worker

16 years ago, but four years ago, he left without notice and no one knows his whereabouts. The 45-year-old mother of nine tried to seek government help since her children are not Jordanian citizens and cannot benefit from many privileges, but was shocked to learn that they do not support non-Jordanian offspring. My children spend most of their time at home since I cannot afford to pay for their education or enrol them in government schools because they are not Jordanians, she said. Um Omar, who does not have a university degree or any kind of work experience, said she roams the streets begging for money to feed her children and try to secure their annual residency fees. Kifah, a 55-year-old Jordanian who married an Egyptian in 1990, is in a similar situation. As in the case of Um Omar, Kifahs husband disappeared 11 years ago and is believed to have returned to Egypt because he was frustrated with his situation. Kifahs two boys, aged 17 and 14, dropped out of school because she could not pay their fees. Both boys work illegally as mechanics and live in constant fear of being arrested by the authorities and deported to Egypt since they are considered Egyptians under the law. Um Omar and Kifah are among thousands of Jordanian women married to foreigners, who are suffering because they cannot pass on their citizenship to their children. As the Citizenship Law now stands, a Jordanian woman can retain her citizenship if she marries a non-Jordanian, but cannot pass it on to her children or husband, while Jordanian men have full privileges to do both.

Jordanian women married to foreigners have repeatedly complained about the discriminatory clauses in the Citizenship Law, particularly those related to visas and residency permits required by their children and husbands. These families have to shuttle between police stations and health centres every year to obtain security clearance, residency permits and medical reports for their foreign children. They are also unable to enrol their children at private or public schools until they obtain a residency permit. In November 2002, the government announced that it was examining the possibility of amending articles in the Citizenship Law to grant Jordanian women the right to pass on their citizenship to their children. But five months later, then-interior minister Samir Habashneh announced that the government had no intention of granting citizenship to children of Jordanian women married to Palestinians until a settlement is reached in the Palestinian conflict. This issue is no longer possible because it means granting citizenship to around half-a-million Palestinians in Jordan, the minister said. Habashneh disclosed that there are about 60,000 Jordanian women married to Palestinians and the average number of children in each of these families is around 6.5. This means giving the Jordanian citizenship to around 500,000 Palestinians, he said. During the Lower House deliberations on the government policy statement earlier this month, a handful of deputies raised the issue of granting women the right to pass on their citizenship to their children. Children most affected Sisterhood Is Global Institute (SIGI) social worker Inam Asha said the organisation receives dozens of citizenship cases annually and children are the most affected family members. The Family Development Association (FDA) has also handled several cases of children who were deprived of citizenship and had to work illegally as a result of their situation, according to Maysa Qaraan, a hotline legal aid worker at FDA.

Social workers say that depriving children of their right to proper education can force them to take up dangerous and unsuitable jobs such as collecting scrap metal, cans and junk to sell, working as construction workers or selling chewing gum to support their families. Gender Specialist Randa Naffaa, who prepared a study on the Citizenship Law for the Zein Al Sharaf Institute for Development in 2003, said the findings indicated that these children are deprived of free or subsidised government services like healthcare and education. Foreign husbands are also deprived of these services and are not protected by the Labour Law, according to the study. In addition, they are likely to lose their jobs or be fired arbitrarily without recourse to legal channels because of their illegal status. Naffaas study points out that such situations also reflect on the families and cause marital problems, leading some husbands to eventually abandon their families and return to their own countries, either to remarry or look for work. Their children face an uncertain future since they do not have Jordanian citizenship and many of them are unable to finish their education, according to Naffaa. They also live with feelings of embarrassment and frustration and regard themselves as strangers or outcasts in their own community, because they are always reminded that their Jordanian mothers, who were born and spent their entire lives in Jordan, cannot give them citizenship, Naffaa said in her study. Foreign women married to Jordanians The Nationality Law is also biased against foreign women married to Jordanians, because there are unwritten clauses stipulating that they need written approval from their husbands to obtain Jordanian nationality, according to Asha. We deal with dozens of cases annually of foreign women married to Jordanians who have been residing in the Kingdom for more than 10 years without being able to get the citizenship, she said. The Citizenship Law stipulates that Arab women married to Jordanians have to wait for three years before obtaining citizenship, while for non-Arabs it is five years.

Although there are no written articles stipulating the husbands approval, his written consent is a must when it comes to procedures to grant his foreign wife Jordanian nationality, Asha said. Suad, 30, an Egyptian married to a Jordanian, is one of the cases Asha handled. Suad claimed her husband constantly abuses her physically and leaves her without food or money for days. In addition, he refuses to sign the papers that would grant her Jordanian citizenship. He wants to control and humiliate me, Suad said, adding that she asked him several times to sign the official papers, but his answer is always the same: If I sign these papers then I will have no control over you. Suad insisted she will not leave him because of her children, but noted that she would be in a stronger position if she were a Jordanian citizen because then she could get a decent job and fight for her rights and child custody if she went to court. According to Asha, many of the women who visit the centre report all kinds of abuse and threats by their Jordanian husbands such as divorce and deportation. Many told me they preferred to endure the abuse just to be with their children and avoid being expelled from the country, Asha told The Jordan Times in a recent interview. Um Omar, Suad and Kifah said they are waiting for the governments mercy, voicing hope that it would grant them equal rights by amending the Citizenship Law.

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