Why are so many Syrian children being left stateless?

Displacement camp outside Aleppo.

According
to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), one of multiple
hardships impacting some of the over three million Syrian refugees who have
fled to neighboring countries since the start of the conflict is the problem of
statelessness. This is not only an
issue for Syrians whose personal documents were lost or destroyed in Syria.
Among the most vulnerable are children of single mothers with no present
fathers. It is nearly impossible for these mothers to register their children’s
nationality. The consequences are grave: children may be denied basic services
such as education and healthcare, including vaccinations, and they may be
unable to return to Syria.

Why are so
many Syrian children being left stateless? Syria openly embraces the principle of jus
sanguinis, which confers the right of nationality by law to be determined
by having one or both parents who are citizens of the state. However, article 3 of
the Syrian Nationality Act deems persons born outside of the country to be
entitled to citizenship only if they are born to a Syrian father. The Legislative Decree explains
that the children of a Syrian woman and a non-Syrian father cannot be granted
citizenship because “a Syrian woman’s marriage to a “foreigner” is likely to
weaken the “inclination” for ‘national patriotism’ in children, since such
mothers “do not feel that tendency.” Instead, the Decree explains, they are
likely to “instill in their children’s minds the love for their (Father’s)
countries and ethnicity, instead of teaching them to love their nation and
homeland (Syria).”

Syria has a history of passing laws that lead to
statelessness and adversely impact the everyday affairs of minorities in Syria.
When Legislative Decree No. 93 was passed
in 1962, close to 120,000 Syrian Kurds were stripped of their nationality when they couldn’t
prove they had been living in Syria since 1945. They lost all rights to claim
Syrian citizenship and were effectively left stateless. Syrian-born Kurds whose
fathers were stripped of their Syrian nationality face tremendous difficulties
in their everyday lives. They are not permitted to own land, housing or
businesses; or be employed at government agencies or state-owned enterprises;
and they cannot practice as doctors or engineers. They are also ineligible for
food subsidies or admission to public hospitals. They may not legally marry
Syrian citizens, and if they do, the marriages are not legally recognized for
either the citizen or the “foreigner,” and both spouses are described as
unmarried on their identity cards. Additionally, the state will not issue
passports or other travel documents to Kurds with “foreigner” status, thereby
barring them from legally leaving or returning to Syria. This issue heavily
impacts Syrian Kurdish refugees fleeing the conflict who have sought refuge in the
Kurdistan region of Iraq. According to a 2013 survey, about 10 percent of
these refugees are currently stateless.

Syrian refugee centre, outside of Za'atari refugee camp, Jordan.

Over the last
ten years, the women’s rights movement in Syria has worked to amend the Nationality Law. In 2004,
the Syrian Women’s League presented a memorandum to
Parliament that called on the government to remove the discriminatory provision
barring women from passing on their nationality to their children. A year
later, the League presented a petition signed by
thousands calling for the law to be amended. The Presidential Palace forwarded
the memorandum to the Ministry of Justice and formed a committee to discuss the
amendment, resulting in the Ministry’s support for changing the law. In 2006,
the League called on the head of Parliament and the Prime Minister to support
the law amendment and bring Syrian law into regional compliance. However,
Parliament voted against this amendment in 2008,
arguing that such an amendment would be contrary to Sharia law, based on the
interpretation that a child’s identity originates from the father’s name and
nationality.

The
campaign did succeed in turning the right of Syrian women to grant citizenship
to their children into an issue of public opinion. In 2011, joining in a larger
coalition of civil society organizations, the Syrian Women’s League presented a
new bill to the new
Parliament. Again, a committee was formed to discuss amending the law. League
members met with representatives from the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry
of External and Internal Affairs to discuss the proposed amendment, but the
bill was not presented to Parliament for a vote before the current conflict
began. The protracted conflict, which caused the Syrian refugee crisis,
effectively placed on hold any progress on the legal changes the League had
fought so tirelessly for.

As with the Kurds, the Nationality law has devastating
impacts on the civil and economic rights of Syrian women and their children.
For example, children of marriages between Syrian women and foreign spouses
cannot inherit property, lack access to free education and have limited access
to health care, social security and other benefits available to nationals,
leading to instability and marginalization. They have difficulty obtaining
employment and are often barred from starting a private business because
non-Syrians are ineligible to buy or lease property.

Statelessness is a critical issue for Syrian refugees whose
children are born from rape or from religious ceremonial marriages where the
couple never completed the process of legal marriage or birth registration. For those who divorce or become single
mothers under these conditions, it is extraordinarily difficult to register
their children’s nationality. Lack of registration not only means no access to
social services; it also leaves stateless individuals more vulnerable to abuse
and exploitation including trafficking, forced labor, and sexual exploitation.

Syrian refugee camp outside Sulaymaniyah, Iraq.

Particularly
under these harsh circumstances, control over one’s fertility and legal status
become paramount. Dozens of Syrian women activists have underscored the
need for contraception as an immediate safety and survival issue. Additionally,
single and expecting mothers need information in an accessible form on marriage
and birth registration. Amongst the most urgent
needs Syrian women refugees have identified are reproductive health services
and psycho-social and legal support to access rights. A needs
assessment conducted
by MADRE in Zata’ari, a refugee camp in Jordan, found that reproductive health
needs, including pre- and post-natal care, support during delivery, newborn
care, and family planning were major concerns for women in the camp.

Syrian women
advocates recognize the links between the crisis of statelessness and the lack
of reproductive justice for women. Additionally, they understand that in the
long term, to ensure that both the legal framework and the enforcement
mechanisms to prevent and address statelessness are a priority in post-conflict
Syria, women must be involved now in the processes that will lead to peace and
rebuilding.

It is imperative at this time to lay the foundation for Syrian women to
build the skills, leadership and networks needed to make their voices heard and
to create channels of communication and consultation between women refugees and
representatives and policymakers. If they continue to be excluded from peace
negotiations, history teaches us that women will lose out on a key opportunity
for justice. If women are meaningfully included in these processes, this will
lay the groundwork for systemic legal and social change that will support
women’s rights, and will undo current laws that violate international human
rights standards. This could include ultimately removing impediments to
women’s abilities to make autonomous decisions about their private lives, including
control over their reproductive health and sexuality, by initiatives such as
amending the Nationality law. It could also include ending forced marriage,
criminalizing all forms of rape, including spousal rape, as well as addressing
and outlawing discrimination against women in property and inheritance laws,
and in personal status laws that govern rights for families.

We need to get to the root of the problem
of statelessness amongst the Syrian refugee population, which is the need for
systemic change and policy reform, so that one day all Syrians may return to
their homeland.