Non-Jordanian Children of Jordanian Mothers

*This article was edited by the Researcher, Kareem Al-Sharabi.

More than 355,000 non-Jordanian nationals born to Jordanian women - known as ‘abnaa al urduniyyat’ - live in Jordan. While stopping short of granting them nationality, the Jordanian government has since 2014 started issuing “privileges” in order to give these non-Jordanian nationals - most of whom were born in Jordan - the six civil rights of work, property ownership, public education, healthcare, car licenses, and international travel. However, over the five years that have passed since the decision, many of these non-nationals have yet to receive these privileges. This continual frustration has led them to see Jordanian nationality as the only meaningful solution.

 
Some articles of the Jordanian Nationality Law No. 6 of 1952 indicate the primacy of Jordanian men in matters of citizenship owing to their exclusive ability to nationalise their children. Specifically, Article 9 states: “The children of a Jordanian man shall be Jordanian wherever they are born.” Article 3 (3) reinforces the same legal platform: “any person whose father holds Jordanian nationality”  can be a Jordanian citizen. This begs the question, what about those not born to Jordanian men but born to Jordanian women? 

This discrepancy becomes even more obvious in light of Jordan’s international obligations. Jordan signed the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1992. But while Jordan signed some of its articles, it abstained from others. One of them was Article 9 (2), which declares: “State Parties shall grant women equal rights with men with respect to the nationality of their children.” Thus, Jordan’s abstention from Article 9 (2) should be seen as bold protection of its Nationality Law, which prevents a woman from passing nationality to her children.

The Political Debate

Opponents to granting nationality to Jordanians born to non-Jordanian fathers maintain that the Nationality Law prevents a situation in which Jordan becomes the ‘alternative homeland’ for Palestinians if women were able to pass the Jordanian nationality to their Palestinian children. They say that Jordanian naturalisation will lead Palestinians to lose their status as refugees, which supports Zionist hopes of replacing Palestine with Jordan as the permanent home for Palestinians. On this note, King Abdullah II said in 2014, “I have said and I would like to say again: Jordan is Jordan and Palestine is Palestine and nothing but that - not in the past, or the present, or the future.” King Abdullah explained that the alternative homeland is an illusion.

However, the connection between granting these residents citizenship and the ‘alternative homeland’ hypothesis may be misleading. Hala Ahed, a lawyer and human rights activist, discussed the Palestinian refugee status as it pertains to international law in her article “Jordanian Nationality Law: Discrimination against Women ‘In Defence of Palestine’.” Ahed mentioned that the ‘right of return’ is an inherent and unalienable right guaranteed by UN Resolution 194. Moreover, she added, the right to self-determination is recognised by human rights conventions, of which the 1951 Refugees Convention explains that localisation of refugees cannot produce a loss in their legal status. This is because its text exempts Palestinian refugees, the category addressed in the clause: “This Convention shall not apply to persons who are at present receiving from organs or agencies of the United Nations other than the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees protection or assistance.” 

However, Jordan is not a state party to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol. While this convention has spawned a universal conception of ‘refugee status’, Jordan - as a non-member - is not bound to this conception. There are several reasons why Jordan is not a member to this convention. Since 1947, the large number of Palestinian refugees in Jordan has historically put the country in a sensitive position on the question of refugees. More recently, the "Peace to Prosperity" workshop in Bahrain and the possibilities it has raised of permanently resettling Palestinians has further heightened this sensitivity. Broader regional events related to resettlement in Jordan - among them the country’s hosting 666,294 Syrian and 66,823 Iraqi refugees - are some of the reasons behind Jordan not being a state party to the Refugee Convention. In any case, the right of a people to ‘self-determination’ and the ‘right of return’ are principles enshrined in international law, meaning that no narrow legal agreements can change that. 

Economy & Resources

Opponents have also cited Jordan's lack of resources and strained economy as reasons for not changing the Nationality Law. Moreover, the former Minister of State for Economic Affairs and the economist Yusuf Mansur published a report in 2011, which argued that giving non-national children economic and social rights would lead to an increase in tax revenues which would improve the Jordanian economy. It has also been shown that granting Jordanians their full rights would contribute to the state’s economic progress through investment and their formal entry into the labour market, which makes the benefits of granting them nationality greater than the costs. 

Gender

The pervious arguments are supposed to be reasons for amending the Nationality Law. However, if these reasons are rooted in fears of disrupting Jordan’s ‘Demographic Balance,’ then one might ask, how is it that after 3-5 years, men can pass Jordanian nationality to their foreign wives? Article 8 (A) (B) mentions, “Subject to the approval of the Minister of Internal Affairs, a foreign woman who marries a Jordanian national may acquire Jordanian nationality if she so wishes by making a written statement to that effect: Three years after her marriage if she is an Arab; Five years after her marriage if she is not an Arab.”

This article has led some critics to call the Jordanian Nationality Law gender-discriminating against women. Proponents might counter, however, that the difference between granting foreign wives Jordanian nationality and children of Jordanian women nationality is that the former increases nationality growth arithmetically while the latter does so exponentially. Still, no matter how you look at it, the fact that women as full nationals cannot pass the Jordanian nationality to their children - even though their male counterparts can - is a clear indicator that the Nationality Law is gender-biased in a way that ultimately renders them second-class citizens.