Syrian Citizenship Disappeared # 6 Status of the husband Status of the wife ajnabi (the male a Syrian national who is registered within the records of ajanib) Confirmation of marriage and legitimation Status of births/children General notes marriage is often not confirmed (owning to not obtaining approval from the Political Security). The approval was only for legitimation (passing the status of the father to the children). Officially the wife is single and the husband too. unregistered/ maktumeen (in case of obtaining no security approval for the legitimation), but obtain the red card (ajanib) in case they obtained the security approval for legitimation but not approval for marriage. In normal occasions the births were not registered automatically in the Personal Status Departments. After 2000, the parents retained a lawyer who sent the marriage contract issued from the Sharia Court attached with a birth certificate issued from the mukhtar lawfully and the police record from the police station in the area the couples live, to the Ministry of Interior which in turn sent it to the Political Security which frequently approved to the legitimation i.e. to pass the status of the father to the children (ajnabi) without the confirmation of marriage. An anachronism. As mentioned in the table, children born from a Syrian mother and an ajnabi father would become maktum. Until 2000, there were legal ways to resolve the legal status of these maktumeen children, and to pass the father’s ajnabi status to the children. Mustafa Ouso reported: “The Syrian government has allowed the registration of births by stateless people recorded as ajanib only since 2000. Earlier, the registration took time and required the payment of bribes to officials within the Syrian security apparatus and in particular the Political Security Division. But even when the Ministry of Interior approved the registration of the children, it didn’t affect the marriage, that remained unregistered. In 2007, with the local security branches re- 40 ceiving the task to conduct investigations and send them to the Political Security Division, it no longer needed a security approval from Damascus. The resolution of the legal status of maktumeen children to become ajanib had been such an exhausting process because of the destitute conditions of the stateless, the complicated procedures, and the large sums of money paid as bribes.” Since 2000, parents have been hiring lawyers who send requested documentation, including the marriage contract by the Sharia Court, the birth certificates of the children by the mukhtar and a police record to the Ministry of Interior in Damascus, that forward them to the Political Security. This frequently results in the registration of the children, but without the approval of the