Jordan Mothers Hope for Full Citizenship Rights

[niyad]

Jordan Mothers Hope for Full Citizenship Rights



"I feel that I am a citizen with a quarantined identity. I cannot pass it on to anyone," says a woman married to a man who is not Jordanian. The government's late-December reform disappointed her and other activists.


Credit: Facebook page of My Mother is Jordanian and Her Citizenship is My Right.





AMMAN, Jordan (WOMENSENEWS)--For Jordanian women married to foreign-born men the onerous forms of legal and political exclusion placed upon their children is a pressing concern. They are blocked from free treatment in public hospitals, for instance, and blocked from enrolling in public schools. They have no chance at legal employment, no ability to legally own property. They can't run for office or vote.

Children of Jordanian fathers married to foreign-born women, by contrast, have no citizenship restrictions. They also pass citizenship to their wives.

Some form of this problem affects women in 27 countries, according to recent research by the Pew Research Center.

But in Jordan, women had reason to hope over the past year that things would change as the government hinted at remedies. But in late December the government dealt a blow by declining a set of reforms recommended by a group of members of parliament. Instead of bolstering civil rights, the government issued instructions about "service-oriented privileges." These instructions have been criticized as flimsy because unlike a law that can easily be changed.
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http://womensenews.org/story/equalitywomen%E2%80%99s-rights/150117/jordan-mothers-hope-full-citizenship-rights