5 days ago
Aoun receives NGO proposal to grant Lebanese women the right to pass citizenship
BEIRUT — President Joseph Aoun received a proposal on Wednesday from a delegation of the 'My Nationality is My Right and My Family's Right' campaign for a law granting Lebanese women who are married to non-Lebanese men the right to give Lebanese nationality to their children "within limits specified by the law."
During the reception of the proposal at the Baabda Palace, which was announced on the presidency's official X account, the director of the campaign, Karima Chebbo, quoted by local news website al-Nashra, expressed hope that Aoun would assist in passing a draft law that would amend a nationality law dating from 1925, which prevents Lebanese women from passing on the Lebanese nationality to their children.
According to Chebbo, the campaign began in Lebanon in 2003 and has since expanded to several Arab countries. The NGO is in coordination with a number of states, she explained, "to achieve justice and equality between men and women."
The campaign "does not target anyone," she said, as quoted by al-Nashra, "but rather aims to ensure fairness for Lebanese mothers married to foreigners and reduce the negative social and familial consequences resulting from the law that has been in effect for the past 100 years."
Despite decades of active campaigning, activists have never seen a breakthrough on this issue. There is no shortage of political pretexts, revolving mainly around "demographic" fears, supposedly linked to the fear of the settlement of Palestinians who have been refugees in Lebanon since 1948 and Syrians who fled the war in their country following its outbreak in 2011.
For children born to Lebanese mothers and residing in Lebanon, this situation is a source of much suffering, as they continue to be considered foreigners.
