S yrian women have been deprived of the right to confer nationality to their children since the enactment of the first nationality law in Syria in 1928 despite the amendments made to this law. The clauses related to women’s rights have yet to be changed; since Syrian law grants the right to pass nationality and filiation solely to the father. In order to apply this, the Syrian regime has relied on many false arguments to justify this discrimination, including sovereignty of the state and preserving the Palestinians’ right to return. The latest of these justifications was that these laws are contradicting the Islamic Shariah law, another pretext to justify denying the obligations of article 9 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). In 2004, Syrian women movements began calling for a change to the nationality law to counteract the consequences concerning marriage to foreign nationals and treating children born from these marriages -and residing in Syria - as foreigners. However, the consequences of this discrimination have been exacerbated since the beginning of the Syrian revolution in 2011 and are affecting a larger number of Syrian women. The damage caused by this law has been affecting children, depriving them of their most basic rights enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of a Child (CRC), i.e. nationality and lineage in addition to education, health and social services. 71 This research analyzes legislative decree No. 276 of 1969 on Syrian nationality and the laws regulating filiation to identify the gaps in the existing laws that discriminate against women. This in turn addresses the necessity of recognizing women’s rights to pass their nationality onto their children, and also proves the regime’s evasion of ensuring equal nationality rights for men and women by reviewing the international conventions and treaties signed by Syria. In the end of the research and based on our findings, an amendment to the legislative decree is proposed in order to ensure women equal rights to confer nationality to their children, without discrimination or conditions. The establishment of modern Turkey and the split of the former Ottoman Empire, under the Treaty of Lausanne and other post-World War I treaties, was the start of the application of nationality laws in the Arab world. As a result, the so-called “Ottoman subjects” started acquiring the nationalities HUMANS WITHOUT RIGHTS The history of the Syrian nationality law

Select target paragraph3

Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents