middleeastmonitor.com

Dozens of Lebanese women and their children have joined protests in central Beirut yesterday demanding the Lebanese law be amended to allow women married to foreigners to pass their nationality to their children.

The protest is part of a campaign titled “My nationality, a right for me and my family”.

The participants held banners that read “nationality is not identification papers” and “the mother is the origin”.

“We demand the Lebanese nationality law, which enshrines discrimination between women and men, be amended. We demand the law be amended so as to ensure full and complete equality between women and men and to give Lebanese women the right to grant citizenship to their families and children when the husband is a foreigner,” campaign coordinator Karima Shabbo told the Anadolu Agency.

Shabbo explained that activists have been working to amend the law since 2002, adding that many Arab countries have amended their laws with the exception of Lebanon.

Member of the campaign coordinating body Mariam Al-Ghazal told Anadolu: “All I want from my country is to respect me and my right as a Lebanese citizen and give me the right to pass my nationality to my children”.

“I have the right that my children live in this country with dignity and not as refugees or strangers,” she added.

“My son was born and grew up here. To him this is home,” Al-Ghaazal said.