The issue is gender equality Jordan Times

Opinion, August 2003, www.aljazeerah.info

Tuesday, August 26, 2003

FORTUNATELY HIS Majesty King Abdullah intervened and ordered that Jordanian mothers, their children and spouses marooned at the Ruweished refugee camp for more than four months after fleeing the war in Iraq be allowed into the Kingdom. The decision put an end to the plight and suffering of not less than 40 per cent of the population of the camp. Yet the bigger issue of Jordanian mothers' right to pass on their citizenship to their children remains unsolved. Prime Minister Ali Abul Ragheb explained the government's reluctance to amend the relevant legislation so that Jordanian mothers and fathers are accorded equal rights to pass on their citizenship to their children. He said the reasoning was of a political nature touching upon the Palestinians' right to return to their homeland. We beg to differ, although we fully appreciate the premier's concern about the political implications of granting Jordanian mothers the same right as Jordanian fathers to pass on their citizenship to their children. Sound political consideration must be constructed on sound legal principles. We cannot turn on or switch off well-enshrined legal norms to accommodate political considerations, assuming they are correct in the first place. Foremost among the internationally endorsed laws is to remove gender inequality across the board. We may understand that the Sharia law imposes certain constraints on gender equality, but when it comes to citizenship rights of children there is no such constraint.

Furthermore, we are not going to solve the problem of the Palestinians' right to return to their homeland by denying Jordanian mothers the comfort of having their children with them in Jordan. The efforts to combat Palestinian resettlement and the promotion of their right to return to their country of origin will not be solved by discriminating against mothers' inalienable right to give their children the Jordanian nationality. The Palestinian dimension of this equation is a much bigger issue and cannot be addressed by discriminating against women.

We would be interested in the number of children that would be affected by granting and not granting them their mothers' citizenship. Our guess is that the number is negligible and does not justify such outright gender discrimination in a matter that is at the heart of family rights. We continue to believe that Her Majesty Queen Rania's announcement at the end of the Second Arab Women's Summit last year, that Jordanian mothers will be treated equally with Jordanian fathers in citizenship rights, must be honoured. Now is the time to do just that.

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).