Citizenship Amendment in Iran
While Iranian men can transmit their nationality to their spouses and children, Iranian women do not have the same right.
After years of attempts by human rights activists, the nationality law was finally amended in September 2006 by the Iranian Parliament. But as Golbarg Bashi mentions in her article “Citizenship Rights in Iran: One Step Forward, Many More to Take,” the unprecedented amendment is just a cosmetic change.
According to the new amendment, children of an Iranian woman and a non-Iranian man can file for citizenship, but only under certain conditions:
- They can file for citizenship after they are 18 years of age;
- Their criminal records must be clean; and
- Their parents’ marriage should be officially registered.
These conditions do not apply to the children of Iranian men.
Iran is home to thousands of Afghan and Iraqi immigrants. Many Iranian women have married Afghan and Iraqi men either by their own will or under compulsion by their families (in some cases women are sold by their families out of financial desperation). Children born out of these marriages are not allowed to attend public schools or use the public health care system, because they are considered non-Iranian. The new law will not improve their situation, since these children have to wait until they are 18 years of age to become Iranian.
Moreover, many marriages between Iranians and Afghans or Iraqis are not officially registered, mostly because many people are not familiar with Iran’s complicated immigration and marriage law. So the children born out of these marriages do not have the right to obtain Iranian identity cards and will not be able to apply for citizenship even after they turn 18, since they do not meet the stipulation that “their parent’s marriage should be officially registered”.
Iranian women must be awarded the same citizenship rights as Iranian men and we need to ensure that the new amendment is not merely a “cosmetic change” but one that grants equal rights to all.
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