Report on Citizenship Law: Syria opportunities enabling them to fully and effectively participate in the political, social, cultural, and economic life”. Despite this, gender inequality in Syrian legislation remains a severe problem. As seen above, Syrian nationality law states that “anyone born inside or outside the country to a Syrian father” shall be considered Syrian, thereby prohibiting women from transferring nationality to their children. Women can transfer nationality only in the exceptional case that the father is unknown – paternity has not been legally established – and only if the child in question was also born in Syria. However, in addition to the ability for women to transfer nationality to their children, there is also discrimination against women in transferring nationality to their spouse. Article 8 of the legislation goes on to regulate how a man can transfer nationality to his non-Syrian spouse but does not offer acquisition of nationality for male spouses of female citizens on an equal basis. Official government statistics are not available, but the Syrian Women’s League estimated in 2008 that there were approximately 100,000 Syrian women married to non-nationals, mostly from other Arab states, and more specifically Egyptians, Iraqis and Palestinians.34 The situation of the stateless groups in Syria also highlights the problematic nature of this gender discrimination. Many stateless male spouses of female nationals are unable to access citizenship, alongside the children of stateless fathers and national mothers not being able to regulate their nationality status through their mothers. This challenge has furthermore been exacerbated by the Syrian conflict. Not only has there been an increase in women marrying foreign men (who had come to fight or help with the humanitarian work), but there are also particular difficulties in registering the marriages of these couples, which is very common issue among the displaced and refugees. There are also gender discriminatory provisions found in other laws that will affect the issue of citizenship. Mostly, the 1953 Personal Status Law (No. 59), modified by law no. 34 in 1975 covers vital events such as marriage, divorce and alimony, in addition to others related to guardianship, trusteeship and filiation. Articles 128-131 of the law for instance specify the conditions of establishing filiation from a valid marriage. Article 129 stipulates: Filiation of a child of every wife in a valid marriage shall be attributed to the husband under the two following conditions: 1. The period of gestation must exceed the duration of the marriage contract [minimum duration of 180 days and a maximum duration of one solar year, as stipulated in article 128 of the personal status law] 2. There is no evidence proving that the spouses had no physical contact, as though one of them was in prison or in a distant country, for a period exceeding the duration of pregnancy. Articles 132 and 133 specify the conditions of establishing filiation in invalid marriages and unlawful intercourse. Article 132 of the personal status law stipulates, “a child born at least 180 days after the consummation of an invalid marriage35 shall be attributed to the husband.” For article 133, the first paragraph of this article stipulates “if a woman gave 34 Institute for War and Peace Reporting ‘Campaign to change unfair citizenship law continues’, access at http://iwpr.net/reportnews/campaign-change-unfair-citizenship-law-continues. 35 The exact meaning of this is not explained in the law but is believed to mean a marriage where fraud has taken place or the terms of the marriage contract have been broken. RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2021/15 - © 2021 Author(s) 11