I want you to imagine the following situation: two beautiful children, boys, with no international identity, no home country. This seems like a mistake, an impossibility in our modern era. How can this happen? Imagine their mother struggling to carve out a future for them with such a devastating limitation. In my book, I share stories told by real women to shed light on circumstances that we are facing even now, in the 21st century. One such circumstance, involving citizenship, is touched upon below.  

In 1979, the United Nations general assembly adopted the international CEDAW. It is considered an international bill of rights for women. Most notably, the GCC countries and most Arab countries have declined to accept article 9, which states that “states parties shall grant women equal rights with men with respect to the nationality of their children.”  

This means that these nations do not support or enforce this article, and that only fathers are able to pass on their nationality to their children. This is regardless of whether the man marries a local or a foreign woman. Mothers from most of the Arab countries, however, have no right to apply for citizenship for their children, nor an identity for them. When a relationship is struck down through abuse, this stance on the law becomes another weapon of the abuser, and it is women who suffer the most.  

In my book, two brave women share their personal accounts of denied citizenship and this failure of the law. The first story relates to a mother fighting for her daughters’ rights to obtain citizenship. These papers which can only be filed by the father. She fought for six long years. Finally, her daughters were granted passports and citizenship thanks to her willingness to continue fighting the broken system. After my book was finished, this brave woman called to inform me that her ex-husband had died. She declared to me that she had forgiven him years ago for his choice which devastated their children’s’ lives, and felt sorrow he was all alone when he died.

The second account is of a mother who has lost all hope. Her two sons have no citizenship, and no identity. She was divorced after her husband uttered no more than three words to her then went to court and filed the papers. He went back home to a neighboring country and still today has not filed for both his sons’ citizenship in any country. She has come to terms with the divorce, but her sons continue to suffer from this. They likely will for the rest of their lives. I have not heard from her even after her story in my book was published. I want to tell her to not give up, that there is hope for her and her sons to get the justice they deserve.