'A matter of survival'

Women unable to pass on Egyptian nationality to their children or obtain ID cards have alerted policy-makers to their plight, Hala Sakr reports
Soheir testifying with little Nagwa by her side
The suffering of Egyptian women related to the issues of nationality and identification documents (IDs) was revealed at a conference entitled "Women and law; legal and constitutional rights" organised last week by the Association for the Development and Enhancement of Women (ADEW) and 100 community development associations.
According to ADEW chairwoman Iman Bibars, the association's work empowering women has brought forward the issues of IDs and the nationality of children of Egyptian women married to foreigners. "As we started to tackle these issues in the '90s, we witnessed the hardships linked to both. It is a matter of survival, not only a matter of rights. The humanitarian aspect must be considered," she said.
"Why do they [officials, policy-makers] want us to hate the existence of our own children? With all the difficulties we confront because of them, our lives become intolerable," testified Soheir, with seven-year-old daughter Nagwa by her side. Divorced after one year of marriage to a Sudanese national, she kept the child. She discovered the nationality-related problems when she applied for the girl at a government school. Because her father was a foreigner, Nagwa was not considered Egyptian and was denied the rights of her Egyptian peers. Nor would the Sudanese embassy recognise her existence, for neither the marriage nor the girl were registered with them. When Soheir remarried and moved to Cairo, she managed to enrol her daughter in a government school only because no one noticed that Nagwa was not Egyptian. "Yet we live with the fear of being discovered, which is likely to happen at the end of primary education if not before. What am I supposed to do with my child when I cannot afford to pay for her education, let alone all other relevant permits and papers?" she complained.
While the present nationality legislation (Law 26 of 1975) grants children born to Egyptian men the right to their father's nationality regardless of their birthplace or mother's nationality, it denies children born to Egyptian women married to foreigners the same right. If a child is born in Egypt to an Egyptian mother and an unknown or stateless father, then he or she may get the mother's nationality. Otherwise, such children remain at the discretion of the minister of the interior and the president. Their cases usually come to a dead-end. Apart from the feelings of insecurity and alienation from their own society, those "foreign" children face many practical problems. They have no right to free education in state schools, while high school fees can be unaffordable, particularly by the poorer classes. They have to endure the hassle of security and residence permits. "If we know that 287,000 Egyptian women are married to foreigners and have an average of two children each, that makes about half a million victims of such legislation," remarked Bibars.
Iman, 25, the eldest of five children born to an Egyptian mother and a Syrian father, was dismissed from school just before primary certificate exams because her father was not Egyptian. Since then, she has received no education, as her mother could not afford school fees. Later, she was repeatedly dismissed from work due to the procedural complexities related to her foreign status. "I do not know what to do or where to go. I have never been out of Egypt. It is the only home I know. Why do we have to go through all this agony?" she sobbed.
Young Ibrahim also wanted to go to school but could not. Instead, he collects plastic bottles from the street to sell them for a couple of pounds to a vendor in his village. His grandmother recounts that the family was happy when their daughter married a Saudi. "We are very poor. We thought that he was going to visit and bring us lots of presents," she recalled. They then discovered that he was not as wealthy as they had believed. "Anyway, he passed away after two years, leaving a child we cannot support or send to school. We do not know what to do."
While Egyptian children pay approximately LE20 per year for primary education, "foreign" children have to pay almost six times as much. Later, they even have to pay in foreign currency. ADEW's Bibars recounts that in 1994, the minister of education issued a decree to exempt children of Egyptian women married to foreigners from paying education fees in foreign currency, but it was never put into effect. A decree issued by the minister of the interior to extend the "foreign" children's residence permits to five years, however, was actually implemented. Interior Ministry officials say that they do all they can to facilitate procedures within the existing law.
Mona Zulficar, a lawyer and member of the legislative committee of the National Council for Women (NCW) said, "Live testimonies from the hearts and minds of suffering women and children are the shortest way to the hearts and minds of policy-makers." This tactic proved successful at the 1992 International Conference of Human Rights, where the Global Tribunal on Violence against Women presented 25 testimonies from the world over. Less than a year later, the UN General Assembly approved the protocol on violence against women and appointed a general rapporteur to report regularly to the secretary-general.
Although a signatory to the Convention for the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (CEDAW), the Egyptian government filed a reservation to article 9, paragraph 2, which concerns the equal rights of women with respect to their children's nationality. "The NCW's legislative committee has recommended the revision of this reservation, which conflicts with the principle of equality enshrined in the Egyptian constitution. Moreover, it is totally unfair to grant Egyptian nationality to children with fathers of unknown nationality and not to children with foreign fathers with a known country and nationality," added Zulficar.
Government officials, however, repeatedly express concern that national security is at stake, as children with foreign fathers may eventually join the Egyptian army. Hossam Lutfy, civil law professor at Cairo University (Beni Sueif branch), argued that if national security is the concern of policy-makers, children could acquire Egyptian nationality but not be allowed into the army. "But then children born to Egyptian fathers and foreign mothers join the army and are allowed full civil rights even if their mother is Israeli. If restrictions are deemed necessary, they should be equally applied to men and women alike," he continued.
Lutfy points out that the current nationality law encourages dual nationality by permitting Egyptian emigrants to keep their Egyptian nationality. Attorney Safa'a Mourad added that this law is a sign of discrimination against women. She pointed to article 13, which grants Egyptian nationality to foreign women married to Egyptians. "How can anybody deny those related by blood to this country their natural right of belonging and grant it so easily to a complete foreigner who can still keep her original nationality?" she complained.
Mourad stressed that the core of the problem is legislators' mentality, which consecrates guardianship of women even in the choice of their spouses. "While nationality is used as a form of punishment in the case of women married to foreigners, men in the same position are awarded easy access to nationality for their wives."
ADEW deputy director Soumaya Ibrahim agreed, insisting that, besides the obvious discrimination and the adverse impact on children, the law is a flagrant violation of the basic human right to choose one's partner. "It is but a punitive measure against the woman who dared to marry outside the clan. It clearly displays the prevailing patriarchal culture," she explained. Married to an Austrian herself, she and her children have endured the consequent burdens. The school asked for five official papers, including permission of the relevant embassy for the children to join its Arabic programme. Her children grew up as Egyptians, not realising that they did not have Egyptian nationality until her elder son confronted reality face to face. At the age of twelve, he competed in the national tennis championship. After winning several matches he was pulled out because he was not Egyptian. He could not understand. "I could not utter a word. What could I say? That he did not belong to the people to whom he always thought he belonged?" Ibrahim asked. Although still attached to Egypt, he left for Austria a few years later.
Some claim that granting Egyptian nationality to "foreign" children is incompatible with Shari'a. Zeinab Radwan, dean of Cairo University's Dar Al-Ulum (College of Islamic Studies), deputy chairwoman of the NCW legislative committee and member of the People's Assembly, affirmed that although Shari'a stipulates that children take their father's name, this has nothing to do with nationality. "Nationality is an issue to be tackled by temporal laws. Granting or denying nationality is decided in accordance with the interests of society, as perceived by policy-makers, which is the same all over the world."
Mo'mena Kamel, chairwoman of the National Democratic Party (NDP) women's committee in Cairo, thinks that political parties should work with NGOs and official bodies to implement related decisions. "The [NDP] should endorse a comprehensive research of this problem to assess its size and impact. It is an economic and social tragedy," she said.
The problem of women's access to ID cards is another symptom of the inequality that women experience. Without an ID card, a person does not officially exist. Out of ADEW's 5,000 beneficiaries, 67 per cent have no legal documents. "In 15 years we could issue only 1,200 IDs. It is a nightmare," lamented Bibars.
Faiza, abandoned by her husband, needed an ID to attend to her family's affairs but failed to obtain one. In addition to enduring poverty and illiteracy, she is not recognised as a citizen. "My son was once detained for questioning. I could not get him out of the police station because I had no ID," she recalled. The same applies to leases, school enrolment and other issues.
The Ministry of the Interior insists that it applies the same complex procedures to males and females. ADEW's Bibars disagrees. "Claims that the course of things is the same for both are not true. These are gender blind policies and procedures that ignore the prevailing culture fostering male superiority," Bibars said.
The conference called for amending the present nationality law to ensure equal rights of men and women as regards their children's citizenship. It appealed to authorities to facilitate existing procedures until the law is amended. The conference also recommended granting NGOs the right to stamp documents necessary for obtaining IDs. Procedures should be simplified for women, given their status within society, it was stressed. Highlighting the problems faced by Egyptian women via live testimonies was applauded.
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