Discrimination against children of Qatari women married to foreigners
The Peninsula
In a symposium at Qatar University last week, the Chairman of the National Human Rights Committee indicated that Qatar has acceded to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination, International Convention on the Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, International Convention for the Rights of the Child, and the Optional Protocol I to the Convention on the Child, amongst others. Perhaps the problem does not lie in adherence to conventions but in their translation into operational policies on the ground, a role that must be played by civil society organizations almost nonexistent in Qatar.
The Chairman pointed out that Qatar is considering accession to the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Hopefully, those considerations swiftly develop into strategic decisions as they represent the biggest challenge facing Qatari society. Ironically, Qatar began progressing several years ahead of many GCC and neighbouring countries, but has stalled since. The Commission, in cooperation with the Supreme Council for Family, has to be commended for conducting a study to be submitted to the Council of Ministers on the potential for bringing the rights of Qatari women’s children into equality with others.
Public participation in such issues is important to raise national awareness and build consensus, rather than imposing decisions from above.
In a recent questionnaire published by Al-Watan, respondents were asked about their support in granting Qatari citizenship to the children of Qatari women married to foreigners. Eighty-one percent of the respondents indicated their support, which is distinctively eye-catching in comparison to similar polls taken place in other GCC countries, where social strife, sectarian fanaticism, and tribalism play a major role in the high rate of rejection of the same issue.
Although the constitutional articles of GCC countries guarantee human dignity and equality of citizens before the law without discrimination on grounds of sex, origin, language, or religion, the law clearly makes a distinction between men and women regarding granting citizenship to children. A child born to a Qatari man married to a foreigner is granted citizenship without limitation. However, if born to a Qatari woman married to a foreigner, the child does not acquire citizenship, apart from some near impossible exceptions. What is worst, divorced GCC women are sometimes denied their children if the father is foreign because the law does not ensure mother’s custody.
This same issue was dealt with in a civilised and humane manner in other Arab countries such as Egypt, and it is anticipated that the UAE will formally announce amending their maternal citizenship law, hopefully encouraging other GCC countries to follow.
A study of citizenship in Arab countries conducted by Dr Fares indicates that a democratic, clear and precise concept of citizenship is nonexistent, and identifies the most important problems as granting males citizens more rights than women, more rights to citizens by birth than naturalisation, open citizenship to some religious sects than others, and exclusionary civil citizenship recognising rights of those born in the community whilst denying the naturalisation of residents in the community for several generations of most basic civil and legal rights.
Unfortunately, there is no institutional, strategic vision for community or national integration. Acquisition of full citizenship is not linked to concepts of national belonging, awareness of history, culture, sacrifice for the nation, or respect for legal, social, and constitutional values.
Rather, citizenship is built on self-interest purely in a political context without effective means to enshrine the concept of community integration on the ground. Laws of nationality, residency, election, and legal positions within international agreements are inconsistent with constitutional provisions of indiscriminate citizenship.
Therefore, it is necessary to draft a new social contract of citizenship and form a civil community that adopts basic human rights principles, while understanding that national belonging, allegiance, and equal citizenship are not impulsive, but coupled with education through training as citizens are involved in decision-making.
The basic steps to strengthen national, humane positions in this long postponed issue are -- grant Qatari women married to foreigners custody of their children without specifying the age of children, equal bonuses as other married employees, citizenship to their foreign husbands in order to accompany wives for medical treatment or overseas education, and equal rights to their children as other citizens such as owning property, health insurance, education sponsorships, and employment opportunities.
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